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IN THE 



POWER OF THE SPIRIT, 



CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE IN THE LIGHT 
OP THE BIBLE. 



BY 

Hey. W. E. BOARDMAN, 

AUTHOR OP GLADNESS IN JESUS, FAITH-WORK, ETC. 







PUBLISHED AT WILLARD TRACT REPOSITORY. 

BEACON HILL. PLACE, BOSTON. 
239 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 

1876. 

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Copyright. Charles Cull!! 



TO ALL 

OF EVERY NAME 

WHO LOVE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, 
GRACE, MERCY, AND PEACE. 

For this cause I bow my knees to the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in 
heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you 
according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened 
with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted 
and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with 
all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height, and to know the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with the 
fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do 
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, 
according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him 
be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all 
ages, world without end. Amen. 



CONTENTS. 



o**o 



PAGE. 

A Prefatory Question, ix 

I. The Question of Fact. The Apostolic 
Period.— The Middle Ages.— The Later 
Centuries. — In the Present Period. — New 
Testament Teaching. — The Pre-Christian 
Ages. — An Accomplished Physician, . 1 

II. Distinct from the New Birth. Story 

of the Free-Bondman. — The Lost Inebri- 
ate saved, 13 

III. Yery nigh Thee. A Long Island Farmer, 26 

IY. Excellency of the Power, of God? . 39 

Y. Infirmities. A Housekeeper. — A Pugilist 

saved, 48 

VI. In Every-day Life. A Christian Gentle- 
man. — A Crisis in the Life of a Book- 
keeper, 58 

VII. Precious in all Things, ; ... 68 

VIII. It shall be Mine, 79 

(v) 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

IX. Perfectly suited to Me, . 92 

X. A Gift, .103 

XI. The Gift Received, .... 113 

XII. His Back to the Sun*, looking at his 
own Shadow. What is it? — A Pas- 
tor's Experience. — Why, amongst ear- 
nest Christians, so few come into it? — 
Why do I fail of the Experience, . . 122 

XIII. Both Sides; ok, The Key Surren- 

dered. The Seventh in Lineal De- 
scent. — A Young Lady Missionary, . 137 

XIV. God's Likeness to Man. Wherein Man's 

Likeness to God consists. — How God's 
Likeness is given to Man. — How God's 
Image in Man was destroyed. — The Sa- 
credness of God's Image in Man. — The 
Blessedness of God's Image in Man. — 
, The Fullness of the Image of God in 
Man upon Earth. — Glimpses of the 
Glory, , 150 

XV. The Present Tense of Faith the 
Perfect Tense of Victory. Your 
Mistake. — An Officer of high Bank, . 162 

XVI. Behold this Child, . . . 173 

XVH. How it came to pass. Completeness 

in Christ, 184 

XVIII. The Burning Bush, . . . .200 

XIX. From Egypt to Canaan. To prevent 

their Ileturn into Egypt. — To prepare 
them to dwell in the Land. — The usual 
Course of Christian Experience. — Un- 
usual Ways. — Every Victory is by Sur- 
render, 212 



CONTENTS. vii 

PAGE. 

XX. Across the Jordan. Moses dead. — 
Sihon and Og dead. — The Land spied 
out. — The People surrendered. — The 
Promise accepted. — The Way unknown 
to the People. — The Waters not cut off 
beforehand. — The Double Set of Memo- 
rial Stones. — The Reproach of Egypt 
rolled off. — The Frontlet Token re- 
newed. — The Conquest. — The Conque- 
ror was Invisible, .... 224 

XXL In the Land. A conquering Life begun, 237 

XXII. Caleb and his City of Enchantment, 254 

XXIII. Kirjath-Sepher, the City of the 

Book. Its Captor, his Bride, and their 
Blessing. — The City of the Book. — A 
Minute-Man. — The Bridal Position.— 
The Added Blessing, . . . .264 

XXIV. The Throne: Fountain within you. 

We in Christ and He in us. — Christ in 
us our Life. — As the Source of Christian 
Daily Living. — As the Source of Real 
Worship. — As the Source of Govern- 
ment, 275 




A PREFATORY QUESTION. 



IS it good to quarrel with terms when we are 
agreed as to the realities ? 

I think not. We may bar ourselves out from 
exceeding great and precious privileges in this way. 
And what is more, w r e may make our objections 
stumbling stones to others. We may stand in the 
gate and neither enter ourselves or suffer those 
who would to go in. 

All real Christians agree that it is our privilege 
to be filled with the Spirit, and that this is the 
great need of the time. But when this privilege 
is unfolded and pressed as a baptism, or the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost, some start back atHhe 
term and just stand at the gate. 

The New Jerusalem has twelve gates, and each 
is called by a different name. Yet all who enter 



x PREFACE. 

by any one of the twelve are really in the City. It 
would be a strange thing if any one approaching 
the gate of Benjamin, for example, should stop in 
it and quarrel with the overarching name and say, 
it ought to be Judah or Ephraim, and not Benja- 
min, and so should block up the way. 

Let me enter into the City by any gate and by 
any name and I will praise the name of the Lord, 
and will not dispraise the name of the gate. 

Our Lord Himself is called, in the Scriptures, by 
as many different names as there are days in the 
year, a new name to meditate upon each day of the 
three hundred and sixty-live, and I have no dispo 
sition to reject Him in any one of them all. And 
God forbid that I should put a straw in the w 7 ay of 
any one else who would receive Him under any 
name they may fancy. 

The Holy Spirit has many relations to us, and 
every one of them is precious. Oh, how great and 
how good is the fullness of them all ! And we 
have many departments of need which He alone 
can fill with the fullness of God in Christ Jesus, 
and how wonderfully gracious when all are given 
up and filled by Him ! 

Of all the names by w r hich our great Redeemer 
and Saviour is called, there is not one that has not 



PREFACE. xi 

a special significance, not one that does not present 
Him in some relation to us which is not embraced 
m any other name. And the Holy Spirit, who 
alone can take of the things of Christ and show 
them unto us, has to us as many special relations 
as our Lord Himself. Indeed, as the revealer to us 
of what there is in Christ for us, the Holy Spirit 
stands related to us as closely as Christ Himself in 
every one of His offices in our behalf. One name 
borne by both the Son and the Spirit is wonder- 
fully significant, Parakletos, advocate, patron — one 
who undertakes our cause for us. 

And this does not mean that they plead our 
cause with an unwilling Father, for both the Son 
and the Spirit proceed and come forth from the 
Father, and the Father's controversy with us is this, 
that we will not be reconciled with Him through 
His Son. 

But it does mean that they plead the Father's 
cause with us. They are advocates and patrons of 
ours from the Father, to bring us into our Father's 
house and into the inheritance He has for us. And 
it does mean that they have undertaken for us as 
our advocates and patrons against all adversaries 
and all powers above and below. 

The Holy Spirit does" indeed convince the world 



xii PREFACE. 

of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. But 
it is of sin because they reject the unspeakable grace 
of God in the gift of His Son. And He does indeed 
reprove the believer; but it is not the reproof of 
an adversary, but of a loving advocate, and that 
because of the lack of faith in Christ. Like the 
oft-repeated reproof of the disciples by our Lord 
Himself, it is the loving urgency to have faith. " O 
fools and slow of heart to believe!*' "Let not 
your heart be troubled." "Only believe." It is 
only Satan with his hosts who accuses us. His 
name is the accuser, the adversary. And he can 
never accuse us effectually except in our own 
hearts; and then he cannot do it if we give them 
up and give up our cause into the hands of our 
Lord and of the Spirit who have undertaken for us. 
Filled with the Spirit we are filled with the full- 
ness of God; for He does not come of Himself, but 
from the Father by the Son. And He does not 
speak of Himself, but of Christ, in whom dwelleth 
all the fullness of the godhead bodily. In the full- 
ness of His presence and office work He unfolds the 
fullness of Christ to us and in us; and as in Him 
dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead, we have 
in Him by the Spirit from the Father all the full- 
ness of God. What a marvellous provision for us ! 



PREFACE. xiii 

How amazing the grace ! How wonderful the wis- 
dom ! How simple the way ! Commit all to 
Christ, and trust in Him to give the Holy Spirit. 
Yield all over into the hands of our Advocate, 
Christ. Accept the gift of the Spirit, another 
Advocate within. And follow Christ, wholly led 
by the Spirit, and so walk day by day in the full- 
ness of God. 

To me the most wonderful thing about it is, that 
with such a privilege plainly revealed in the Bible 
I should ever for a moment have closed my eyes 
and my heart against it. No, the most wonderful 
of all is that our God should have borne with me 
during the years of rejection, until in His love He 
could overcome me and bring me to accept His 
unspeakable gift. And now all I can do is to pre- 
sent this same unspeakable gift patiently, perse ver- 
ingly, and lovingly to others in all the ways the 
Lord gives me, and beg that the imperfections 
attaching to the instrument may not prejudice the 
reception of the gift. 



t 



IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT, 

AS AN EXPERIMENTAL ENDOWMENT. 



I. 

THE QUESTION OF FACT. 

S^jjntoROM age to age the Lord has raised up 
^fll R men of mark for their spiritual power, by 
a/c^fUs whom He has glorified Himself. However 
much these men have differed one from another 
in native endowment and human culture, in two 
things they have all been alike — they have been 
great in faith and full of the Holy Ghost. The 
wealth of their success has been according to the 
strength of their faith, and the efficiency of their 
faith has all been due to the fullness of the power 
of the Spirit upon them. 

THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD 

opened with the pentecostal gift of the Spirit 
received by the hundred and twenty assembled in 

(1) 



1 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the upper chamber in Jerusalem, and that instan- 
taneous experience was the beginning of the 
wonderful power of the Apostles and Evangelists. 
From that moment commenced the spread of that 
experience amongst those who had before, like 
the Apostles themselves, been converted under the 
preaching of John the Baptist and of Jesus, and 
those who were subsequently brought into repent- 
ance and remission of sins by the ministry of 
the Apostles, Evangelists, and their fellow dis- 
ciples. This resulted in an age surpassing by far 
all ages before or since, for the wonders of God's 
power wrought amongst men by the hands of His 
servants in saving the lost. 
Along the line of 

THE MIDDLE AGES 

in the annals of the church there are here and there 
to be seen lights of magnitude shining out upon the 
surrounding night. Yet they are few in compari- 
son, and in the testimony of those few it might be 
impossible to trace the beginning of their superior 
power to any moment when they came into the 
power of the Spirit. In truth, the knowledge of 
the gift of the Spirit as a personal endowment for 
individual Christians, had been lost. The wily 
adversary had perverted the doctrine of the Spirit 
to his own purposes by inducing the church to 



THE QUESTION OF FACT. 3 

accept it as the doctrine of a sacerdotal instead of an 
experimental endowment ; as pertaining to priestly 
authority and not to individual spiritual efficiency. 
Yet it is entirely legitimate to conclude that all of 
every age who have shown by their fruits that they 
had the Apostolic endowment of spiritual power, 
came into it by an experimental reception of the 
Spirit not essentially different from that of the 
Apostles and Evangelists. 

They, in fact, stood upon the same ground 
with all in every age who, without understand- 
ing beforehand that there was for them such an 
experience, or seeing clearly afterwards that it is 
the privilege of all true Christians, have been 
led into it by ways they knew not, and have 
found it a wealth of power and blessing of which 
they had never dreamed. To this class belong the 
great lights of the pre-Christian ages, of whom 
more anon. 

Passing along down through 

THE LATER CENTURIES, 

the case changes materially. Lights of greater 
magnitude and clearer ray are seen in increasing 
numbers. Searching the records for their testi- 
mony, we find it in many instances very conclu- 
sive, and in some very direct, to the point of an 
instantaneous experience after their conversion, 
2 



4 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

from which dates the beginning of their lives in 
the power of the Spirit. 

Among these may be named people of different 
lands and various communions, such as Fenelon 
and Madame Guyon, French Catholics ; George 
Fox, founder of the Society of Friends in England ; 
the Wesley s, founders of Methodism, and their 
followers Fletcher, Hester Ann Rogers, Mrs. 
Fletcher, Carvosso and Bramwell, also of England ; 
Malan and D'Aubigne, Swiss Calvinists ; and James 
Brainerd Taylor, an American Presbyterian, all of 
whom together comprise only a few of the brighter 
stars in - whole galaxy of shining witnesses. These 
all testify of themselves that at a certain moment 
during their Christian course they were suddenly 
lifted up into Christ and filled with the Spirit in an 
experience which stood at the beginning of a 
higher plane of Christian life and power. 

IN THE PRESENT PERIOD 

we are entering upon a course still in advance of 
the latest past. Never before has the experience 
been so distinctly taught, and by so many, as the 
privilege of all, — never since the primitive days of 
the Christian church. Never has it been sought 
by such multitudes ; nor ever has there been a time 
since that day when so many were pressing into it. 
National camp-meetings expressly for this object ; 



THE QUESTION OF FACT. 5 

union conventions, and a multitude of weekly 
prayer-meetings for this purpose exclusively ; and 
a continually increasing number of monthly peri- 
odicals and weekly journals, in which it is advo- 
cated, show a state of things hitherto unknown. 
In the emphasis laid upon this matter, and in the 
distinctness with which the experience is urged as 
the privilege of all Christians, we are approaching 
the example of Christ and His Apostles. In clear- 
ness, simplicity and comprehensiveness, however, 
we are far behind the first teachers and exem- 
plars of this Christian endowment, and we have a 
great deal yet to learn from them. . *> 

Perhaps in no other one thing is this shown more 
than in the difference of names given to the expe- 
rience. Christ and His Apostles gave it one name 
only ; we call it by many different names. The 
name they gave it was all-comprehensive. The 
names we use are all partial and fragmentary in 
their significance. They expressed the very thing 
itself radically, in the name used by them. We 
express one or other of its branches or fruits only 
by each of the names we use. The name given it 
in the New Testament is : " The Baptism of the 
Holy Ghost." The names by which it is now 
called in various circles are such as these : " Sanc- 
tification," "Holiness," "Perfect Love," "The 
Rest of Faith," and " The Higher Christian Life." 



6 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Unquestionably each one of these names ex- 
presses some one phase of the blessed experience 
into which the Christian comes by receiving the 
Baptism of the Holy Ghost, and therefore each 
name has peculiar expressiveness, yet no one of 
them is all-inclusive. In the experience the Chris- 
tian comes to apprehend God's method of sanctifi- 
cation as by faith and not of works, nor of mingled 
works and faith. By faith, because it is purely the 
work of the Spirit, and the Spirit is purely the gift of 
God, and faith is the Christian's hand which takes 
the gift from God. Therefore there is beauty as 
well as truth in the saying that the great work now 
rising into prominence is the grand " second step 
in the Protestant Reformation," because, as the first 
step was marked by the development of justifica- 
tion by faith, so is this to be by the unfolding of sanc- 
tification by faith. " Holiness," by which is meant 
holiness to the Lord continuously in heart and life, 
expresses sanctification in perpetuity. tl Sanctifica- 
tion," as used in the Bible, expresses the act of 
setting one's self apart to the Lord, or the condition 
of being set apart to the Lord, (comprehensively, 
separation to the Lord,) as Holiness does the 
active, endless living in devotion to the Lord. 

But these are only parts of the one great whole 
enjoyed by the Christian who has really accepted 
the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and has Him ever 



THE QUESTION OF FACT. 7 

more abiding in him. "Perfect Love," using the 
term in the same sense as that in which the beloved, 
loving, lovely Apostle John used it, expresses 
another and most glorious reality enjoyed by all 
who receive the Spirit and have Him in His power 
abiding in them. 

u The Rest of Faith " expresses another of these 
great and sweet realities. 

"The Higher Christian Life," as expressive of 
the Christ-life — Christ in us our life ; the life more 
abundant, as Christ Himself puts it in His sayings : 
" I am the Life, 5 ' and " I am come that they might 
have life, and have it more abundantly ," indicate 
another wonderful and precious reality of this 
experience. 

Yet taken all together they do not express the 
whole. "Power" would be as appropriate as any 
of the names in use, and as Scriptural, too. " Ye 
shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you," said our blessed Saviour to His disci- 
ples as He was about to leave them and make w r ay 
for His spiritual presence by His bodily absence. 
And power is one of the grand characteristics of 
this wonderful endowment, not expressed in any of 
the names now in use for its designation. 

Abiding union w 7 ith Christ, is another grand 
reality not conveyed in any of them. 

Abundant fruitage is another. 



8 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Now at last, however, — just now for the first, — 
we are coming to the apprehension that the experi- 
ence taught under such various names is the very 
same as that taught by John the Baptist and our 
Saviour, and exemplified and urged by the Apostles, 
Evangelists, and their fellow disciples, under the 
name of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. 

This question settled, settles forever the question 
of fact concerning the experience as a personal en- 
dowment for all Christians who will receive it upon 
the immutable foundation of 

NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING. 

The first clarion note of the herald of Christ is : 
" Repent ye ! " and the next is " Ye shall be bap- 
tized with the Holy Ghost ! " 

When John stood among the multitudes by the 
Jordan and proclaimed Christ in these words : " I 
indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, 
(change of mind,) but there standeth One among 
you, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy 
to unloose ; He shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire ! " — his words must have fallen 
on them like a bugle blast from the skies. " What ! 
who ! where ! which is He ? What is this new bap- 
tism that He will bestow upon us ? " Plow such 
exclamations and questions must have passed from 
lip to lip ! 



THE QUESTION OF FACT. 9 

This proclamation by John was confirmed by our 
Lord. He, through all His ministry, prepared the 
way by His teachings, and finally toward the end 
reiterated the promise to His disciples as from the 
Father, and unfolded its significance as fully as 
they were able to receive it, and then at the 
moment of His ascension He reaffirmed the words 
of John saying : " John indeed baptized you with 
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost not many days hence." 

The fulfillment of this promise, first in the 
upper chamber, and then in the temple on the day 
of pentecost, and afterwards in the case of the 
Samaritan converts, Apollos and the twelve dis- 
ciples at Ephesus, fills up the measure of this New 
Testament teaching, and places the matter as an 
indisputable fact recorded by divine authority. 

Add to this the words of Peter to those who so 
earnestly cried out on the day of pentecost : " Men, 
brethren, what shall we do ? " " Repent and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
of Nazareth, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise 
is unto you and to your children, and unto all 
that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our 
God shall call.' 9 These words place the univer- 
sality of this great Christian privilege beyond 
question. 



10 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 
Allusion has been made to the great lights of 

THE PRE-CHRISTIAN AGES. 

No one can doubt, without violence to common 
sense, that such men as Enoch, who walked with 
God , Moses, who talked with Him ; Abraham, the 
friend of God ; Elijah, who called down fire upon 
the altar, and went up in a chariot of fire ; Isaiah^ 
who was purified by fire and all ablaze with it, — 
had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of 
fire, whether they knew it as a distinct experience 
and general privilege or not. 

That these men should not have so known it, is 
more than probable, because then as yet, God had 
not revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. Jesus had not yet come in the flesh, and 
the time had not come for the distinctiveness which 
now obtains in the teaching of the gift of the Holy 
Ghost in contradistinction from the experience of 
the new birth. 

That they could receive this glorious endowment 
without knowing about it, as the Apostles did, as 
a distinct experience, is quite clear, because even 
now there are similar instances. A single example 
of this kind will serve as the representative of a 
class of whom there have been some in every age. 
With this, these statements concerning the question 
of fact will end. 



THE QUESTION OF FACT. 11 

AN ACCOMPLISHED PHYSICIAN 

came one day into a meeting, where the higher 
Christian life was the subject of conversation. He 
was a man of unusual strength and culture, and of 
manly bearing. He listened and kept his seat as 
long as he could, then rose and said : 

" This is very wonderful ! I have never been 
in a meeting of this kind before. I have never 
heard or read a word on this subject until this hour. 
Yet now I hear things from you, which are as 
familiar to me as if I had been hearing and reading 
about them all my days. In telling your experi- 
ence, you tell mine. Your feelings are mine. 
Your Saviour as an ever-present Saviour, is mine. 
I never dreamed that this experience was the privi- 
lege of all Christians. I thought it was peculiar to 
me, and that 1 had been led into it by my own 
peculiar condition of bodily health. The fact is, 
that although I appear strong and well, I am a 
very great sufferer, and my life hangs upon a thread 
which may snap at any moment without the warn- 
ing of so much as a tick of the clock. In my 
agony and peril I was driven to cast myself as I 
was, on Christ. I had long been a Christian, but 
felt that I was far from being purified from sin and 
filled with Christ. It was plain to me that I could 
not purify myself, or even make any great effort 
to do so. Therefore I just abandoned myself to 



12 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Jesus to do what He pleased with me, and there 
left my case and was at rest. 

" Very soon after that, without any effort on my 
part, I began to be filled with the fullness of God, 
and have been so ever since. It is amazing to me 
to think how the Saviour manifests Himself to me ; 
not only w 7 hen I am in prayer or reading the Bible, 
or in the house of God, or amongst fellow Chris- 
tians, but when walking the streets, or in a crowded 
hotel, or railway car, or reading a newspaper, Jesus, 
who is never absent from me, unfolds Himself to 
me in some new relation, or in some old one 
renewed, and so fills me with joy that, Episcopalian 
as I am, I can hardly restrain myself from praising 
Him aloud." 




II. 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW BIRTH. 



STORY OF THE FREE-BONDMAN. 




^S£?EARS ago there came to the lead mines on 
the Iowa side of the Mississippi river, a 
man whose story is one of many, — stranger 
than fiction, — connected with the by-gone Ameri- 
can enormity, African slavery. 

He was a slave, intrusted by his master with 
himself, to go where he pleased and do what he 
liked ; to earn money and pay first for himself and 
then for his wife and children, at certain stipulated 
prices. 

Mining there was a venture. The average shaft 
was eighty feet deep, three-fourths in the rock. 
Some shafts produced nothing ; others paid well. 

Henry, — that was his name, — found a partner 
and commenced work. They sunk a shaft to the 
average depth, and found no paying deposit of ore. 
This brought them to the bottom of their purse and 
to the end of the partner's endurance. Henry 

(13) 



14 IN TEE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

resolved to go on down alone with his shaft. He 
could manage to live and keep his tools in repair, 
by doing now and then a cash job for somebody- 
else, and he changed work with other miners to 
get help on what he could not do alone in Lis own 
shaft. 

For awhile he went on cheerfully. By-and-by 
hope began to fail. Finally, he made up his mind 
to drill one more hole as deep in the rock as he 
could, without putting in another blast, and then, 
if he did not come to an opening, abandon the 
shaft. As he was lifting and dropping his drill for 
the last time, suddenly it disappeared and was 
gone. Then he knew that the long-sought open- 
ing was found. 

A few eager hours served to open an orifice, 
through which he let himself down by a rope until 
his feet rested on the rock below. A moment 
more was taken in striking a light, when, to his 
unspeakable delight, he w r as fairly dazzled by the 
brilliance of the crystalline ore above, below, and 
around. He stood amidst the illuminated price of 
himself, and was glad. 

This was his first discovery, and a grand one — 
it paid for himself, and he was free. This was a 
joy and a glory. But his wife and children were 
still in bondage, and his cavern in the rock was 
stripped of its wealth. 



DISTINCT FROM TEE NEW BIRTH. 15 

What should he do ? Two ways were presented : 
He could " drift " along the crevice upon the same 
level with his first discovery, or he could go down 
deeper for a second store of mineral wealth. Which 
way should he take ? The old miners advised him 
to "drift." His own heart said "go down/' and 
down he did go ; not far before he " struck " 
another opening, much larger and richer than the 
first. This time his hopes were abundantly sur- 
passed. His wife and children were emancipated, 
a fine farm was purchased and stocked, a good 
house erected and furnished, out of his second dis- 
covery, and an ample cash capital was left over to 
him for business. 

The story of this free-bondman is that of many 
a soul. 

God has prepared for us a store of grace and 
truth in Christ Jesus, ample both to redeem us from 
bondage and to endow us for service and glory. 
These stores of grace are hidden in Christ, and 
must be discovered to be possessed and enjoyed. 
They are freely provided and freely bestowed, and 
are ours the moment we accept and discover them. 
They have to be searched for as for hid treasure, 
or they will not be found. We seek for them only 
when pressed by a sense of our need. Our necessi- 
ties are two-fold, and the discoveries to meet them 
are made one at a time. The first great felt want 



16 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT, 

that arises in the soul is that of deliverance from 
condemnation and death. When we discover the 
grace of God in Christ Jesus, by which this want 
is met, it is glorious indeed. Like Miriam and 
Moses, we sing the song of triumph on the hither 
bank of the Red Sea, and rejoice with unspeakable 
joy in redeeming love. 

The second great necessity, as it arises, is that of 
endowment. Liberty does not suffice, — power is 
needed as well. Like Israel delivered from bond- 
age, we find ourselves in a wilderness, often hungry 
and thirsty ; and when we come up to the borders 
of the land with its flowing abundance, we start 
back from going in to possess it, because its high 
walls and giants appal us. Then comes the ques- 
tion, What shall we do to obtain the needed endow- 
ment? Shall we " drift" on the level of our past 
discovery, in the hope of gradual gain, or shall we 
strike down for a deeper and richer store of grace 
and truth ? 

Alas for us ! too many of us try the wrong way 
first, and some continue it to the end, and so fail 
of the grand discovery they might otherwise make. 
Forever in the first principles — sinning and repent- 
ing, — they never get beyond the plane of their first 
experience. 

Those who do strike for a new discovery, are 
usually not very long in finding it, and when it is 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW BIRTH. 17 

found every want of their souls is met. Redeemed 
before, they are now endowed ; bought already with 
a price, and clothed with garments of salvation, 
they are now filled with the Spirit — brought into 
abiding union with Jesus and made temples of the 
Holy Ghost. 

By the first experience we are born into the 
family of God, and receive the spirit of adoption ; 
by the second we come to manhood, and enter 
upon our inheritance as heirs of God. 

The deeper experience was realized by the patri- 
arch Job when the Lord manifested Himself to him 
in the rolling, involving cloud, and doubled over 
to him all he had ever before possessed and enjoyed. 
The prophet Isaiah came into it when he was 
cleansed from sin by the fire from the altar laid on 
his lips. Patriarch and prophet alike received the 
baptism of the Spirit, (the Rhua) the wind, the fire. 

The second grand discovery was symbolized in 
the Old Testament as distinct from the first, by the 
Feast of Pentecost, which came after that of the 
Passover. For as the Passover signified atonement 
for sin, and immunity from judgment, so the Pente- 
cost represented endowment with resurrection-life 
and power in Jesus by the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost. 

In the New Testament, John the Baptist pro- 
claims the distinction by declaring that he preaches 



18 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT, 

the> first experience, and that upon those who come 
into that, Jesus will also bestow the second. 

Jesus emphasizes this proclamation of John by 
repeating it, and speaking to His disciples as 
already in the first experience, and soon to come 
into the second. And He also unfolds at length 
the nature and benefits of the later and deeper 
experience, as that in which He bestows the Com- 
forter upon His disciples, to dwell in them forever, 
and in which He comes to them Himself with His 
Father, to abide forever with them, so to bring 
them into abiding and full union with Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit. 

The Apostles and their fellow-disciples exemplify 
the distinction by the fact that on the day of Pente- 
cost they receive the promised Comforter after hav- 
ing been true disciples of Christ, as recognized by 
the Saviour Himself, during the years of His 
presence with them in the body. 

Peter and John act upon the fact of this dis- 
tinction when they go down to Samaria and at once 
pray for the happy Samaritans already converted 
under the preaching of Philip, that they may 
receive the Spirit. 

Paul acts upon it when he meets the twelve dis- 
ciples at Ephesus, raid asks them whether they 
have received the Spirit since they believed. 

Apollos further illustrates it by accepting the 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW BIRTH. 19 

deeper experience under the teaching of Aquila 
and Priscilla, after having become already a true 
Christian, zealous for Christ, eloquent in the gos- 
pel, and mighty in the Scriptures. 

Many, in our own day, who have been born 
again and have clearly apprehended their justifica- 
tion by faith, seek and find the later and deeper 
experience under one or other of various names, 
such as " Sanctification," " The Rest of Faith," 
" Perfect Love," and " The Higher Christian 
Life." 

Besides these, there is another class of Christians 
who come into it without ever having heard of it 
at all as a distinct experience. Pressed by their 
great heart-hunger for something more than they 
have found in their conversion, they go anew to 
the Lord, give themselves up completely into His 
hands, and He gives them in fact the Holy Spirit 
to dwell in them and lead them into all the fullness 
of God. 

What could show more clearly the distinctness 
of the later experience from the new birth ? Taught 
and exemplified abundantly as distinct in the Scrip- 
tures, sought and found under other names by 
many who have not recognized it under the Scrip- 
ture name — Baptism of the Holy Ghost — and actu- 
ally found by those who have not sought it or 

heard of it so as to conceive of it as a distinct 
3 



20 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

experience, either from the Word of God or the 
teachings of their fellow Christians ; — if these 
things do not show it, what could ? 

A single instance from the many of the last 
named class will sufficiently illustrate the fact stated 
concerning them : — 

THE LOST INEBRIATE SAVED. 

He had been a prosperous man, a banker^ with a 
loving and lovely wife and a large circle of reput- 
able friends. Insidiously, the habit of wine drink- 
ing had grown into that of a craving appetite for 
something stronger, and this into an alarming fre- 
quency and constancy in the use of intoxicants, 
until at last it became a cancerous vice, striking its 
deadly roots into the vitals of his character, pros- 
perity and prospects. He began to neglect his 
affairs. He did things that were foolish, yea fear- 
ful, for a business man to do. Confidence in him 
gradually ceased, friends dropped off, business 
diminished, and finally he was compelled to change 
his line for one of lower grade. 

Meanwhile he became alarmed for himself, and 
sought to reform. He tried gradualism, and the 
grade was downward ever into deeper depths. He 
tried total abstinence by resolutions which snapped 
in the hour of temptation. He added the force of 
public sentiment by the public pledge, but respect 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW BIRTH. 21 

for his word before men proved as ineffectual as 
his private resolutions had done. Neither self- 
respect, or respect for his wife, or for public opin- 
ion, could hold him back from intoxication. 

One resource remained, and this he felt sure 
would answer the purpose — the church — religion. 
His wife was a member of the church, and he made 
up his mind to cast in his lot with her and be a 
true Christian. He took his stand publicly, entered 
the Sabbath school, talked in prayer meetings, and 
offered himself as a member of the church; and 
was indignant that they did not call a special meet- 
ing to receive him. All this while he was using 
tobacco as a substitute for stronger stimulants, and 
often hastening home from church or Sabbath 
school to his pipe. This, of course, could end only 
in failure, and this time his failure was an awful 
one. Like the Prodigal, he deliberately took 
everything he could scrape together, and literally 
went away into a far country and wasted all in riot- 
ous living. With a high hand he kept it up for 
many weeks, until his money was all gone. At 
last he came so far to himself as to return deeply 
humbled to his home. 

Before going away he had heard Dr. John Hall, 
and been impressed with his sincerity, and after his 
return he again sought his ministry. The Lord so 
ordered it that the subject of discourse this time 



22 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

was the love of God, and it fell upon the prodigal 
returned, like the welcoming arms of a father ; his 
heart was deeply touched and he sought an inter- 
view, and said frankly, st I have come to see you 
about my soul." Dr. Hall said many things true 
and kind — one thing went home to the depths of 
his visitor's heart. He asked him if he knew the 
plan of salvation. The answer was, " O yes, I 
understand it very well." u You know, then, that 
you need to have imputed to you the righteousness 
of Christ, do you? " " No, sir, I do not; what 
does that mean ? " The Doctor explained. " The 
righteousness of Christ ? " thought he, " the right- 
eousness of Christ ; no, I have been trying to mend 
my own ways, so as to make them right in my own 
eyes and commendable to God. Oh ! I must have 
the righteousness of Christ." 

Heartily thanking the Doctor, he went out, 
sought his own place, locked himself in, and that 
very night before he had been long prostrate in the 
presence of the Lord, he had his eyes opened to 
see the miserable patch- work of his own righteous- 
ness, mended up as best he had been able to do it, 
as all and only filthy ?*ags, while the perfect 
righteousness of Christ came out before him in its 
spotless beauty and shining glory as all his own by 
simple faith. Instantly, his mourning was turned 
to joy, and his garments of heaviness to praise. 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW BIRTH. 23 

From that blessed hour he was in a new life, in 
a new world. His motives were new, his feelings 
were new, his chains fell off. The old appetite left 
him ; tobacco, like alcohol, ceased to be a tempta- 
tion to him. He was a free man, a true man, a 
true child of God. Yet, although free, he was not 
full. He was, indeed, at times very joyous ; but 
then again he was in unrest. From the day of his 
conversion he gave himself up to earnest and active 
service as a Christian, but he found the impulsion 
too often to be only a sense of duty, when it should 
have been love. He worked faithfully, but longed 
more and more for a deeper spiritual endowment. 

His sense of need grew oppressive. At last he 
went to Jesus, and gave himself up anew to the 
Saviour, and laid himself over like an infant in 
its mother's arms, and there rested. From that 
hour his soul was satisfied in Jesus. Duty was 
turned into delight, and service became the joy of 
his life. 

This proved a new era in his heart history. He 
still keeps his position as a little child resting in 
the arms of Jesus, trusting for all things and find- 
ing all things in Christ. Before this he fought his 
own battles, looking to Christ to help him, and was 
often defeated. Since then he lets Jesus fight for 
him, and comes off conqueror. Up to that time he 
had planned work for the Lord, and tried to get 



24 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the Lord to carry out his plans. Since then he has 
let the Lord plan for him, and looked to the Lord 
for grace to do His own appointed work in His 
own appointed way. Before that, the Bible was 
precious, but it was sometimes read as a task. Now, 
the Living Word so illuminates the written Word 
that it is sweeter than honey. And up to that 
moment prayer had sometimes been a burden, but 
since then it has been one of the great and cease- 
less pleasures of life. 

During the more than thirty months that have 
since gone by, this beloved brother in Christ has 
been tried to the utmost, but the Lord has been 
faithful and has not permitted his faith to give way. 
In one instance the arch enemy put him to the test 
in a way no less subtle than cruel. One day in a 
street car he was seized with dizziness and fell. 
Fellow passengers lifted him up and sustained him 
until he so far recovered as to get home. A phy- 
sician prescribed for him ; the apothecary sent him 
the medicines prescribed. The package contained 
two ounces of brandy. Taking it in his hand he 
went into his closet, and holding up the vial before 
the Lord he prayed, " O Lord, if it be possible, 
heal me without my taking this brandy ; if not, 
then let me die." He was healed without the 
brandy, and lives to glorify God our Saviour for 
this deliverance and for all His innumerable mercies. 



DISTINCT FROM THE NEW Bin Til. 25 

A number of months after this second experi- 
ence, he was incidentally brought into association 
with other Christians who had received the like 
precious faith, and who understood it and taught it 
as the privilege of all believers in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. And then, for the first time, he came to 
understand how great and how distinctive was the 
grace into which he had come. 




o>- 



s 



III. 



VERY NIGH THEE. 

S^rp^ES, beloved, very nigh thee it is indeed! 
^JP? And a very precious thing, indeed, it is 
•~{l^3 that is nigh thee. Let us understand it as 
clearly as possible. 

The Lord freely forgave you all your sins, and 
accepted you as His own dear child. He did this 
in a single moment, though you had been hours 
and days — yea, weeks or months it may be, vainly 
struggling for it before, and the moment in which 
He did it was the very moment in which you 
turned to Him with all your heart, and really 
believed in Jesus as your Saviour. 

This is what we call an experience, and this is 
what is called in New Testament phraseology, a 
baptism. The Baptism of Repentance, so styled 
both by John the Baptist, and by our Lord Himself. 
We call it, also, the new birth, and conversion. 

Since that experience, you have felt in greater 
or less degree, the want of something more. You 

(26) 



VERY NIGH THEE. 27 

have longed to have your brightest moments pro- 
longed so as to pour their glow through all the 
hours and days of your life. The glimpses of the 
love of God gained by you at times, you have 
wished to have spread out into the dawn, ever 
brightening, of a day, in all the hours of which 
the Sun of Kighteousness should shine upon you 
from on high. The delight you have had in the 
Word of God, and in prayer, at certain seasons, 
and in telling of what Jesus has done for you, and 
in endeavoring to win others to the like precious 
experience — these visits of the Lord — you have 
greatly desired to have become an abiding, unceas- 
ing feast of the soul. 

Another thing you have found since that happy 
baptism of repentance and remission of sins. You 
have found at times, sin, Satan, unbelief, the 
world, getting the victory over you, and then you 
have longed, and you do now earnestly desire to 
gain a conquering position and to be an overcomer 
through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be 
no more overcome as you have been, alas, too 
often in the past. 

Still another thing you have found since the 
love of God was first unfolded to you. The sweet 
rest of your soul, into which you entered then 
has often been disturbed by unhallowed passions, 
and heavy anxieties, and you have longed deeply 



28 IJST THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

for an unbroken rest of soul in the Lord. Yet 
other things might be named, but these will 
suffice. 

Now, beloved, just what you have found since 
that happy hour of the forgiveness of your sins, 
others have found also, and what you have so 
longed for and not found, they have desired and 
found by another and deeper experience. Yea, and 
much more have they found than they had dared 
to expect, or known to ask for, or think about. 

This second and deeper experience it is, that 
has of late been variously designated by such 
expressive names as Sanctification, The Rest of 
Faith, Perfect Love, The Higher Christian Life, and 
Holiness. And this is precisely what was desig- 
nated by John the Baptist and Christ, in immedi- 
ate comparison with the Baptism of Repentance, 
as the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Both alike, 
are of God, by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through the Holy Spirit. 

The first is the work of the Spirit on our spirits ; 
that work concerning which our Lord bids us 
not to marvel, saying it is like the power of the 
wind, which is one of the beautiful symbols of the 
Holy Spirit, " which bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; so is 
every one who is born of the Spirit." 



VERY NIGH THEE. 29 

The second is the incoming of the Spirit to 
abide in us, impart His gifts, bring forth His 
fruits, unfold the things of Christ unto us, mani- 
fest to us the Father and the Son, lead us into all 
truth, keep us in the peace of God, give us the 
rest of faith, the Sabbath of the soul, make us 
conquerors and more than conquerors through Him 
who hath loved us, purify us unto Himself a pecu- 
liar people, and enable us to live in righteousness 
and true holiness all the days of our life. 

These two experiences, as we call them, bap- 
tisms as they are called in the New Testament, 
should be distinguished from that which precedes 
them, and that which follows them, if we would 
fully understand this great matter. 

There comes before the Baptism of Repentance, 
and must come, the convincing work of the Spirit, 
for no one would ever turn from the idolized 
world, and from a life of self-gratification to the 
Lord, unless deeply and truly convinced both of 
the necessity for it, and of the righteousness of it, 
and that by some power equal to the work of 
unfolding our relations and obligations to God, as 
only the Spirit of God can do. 

After that experience, when we drift away from 
the Lord through an evil heart of unbelief, and 
fall into sin, comes another work of the Spirit, 
that of drawing us back to Christ, and renewing 



30 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

us in repentance and in the sense of sins forgiven. 
And this may come many times, O, so many times, 
that one is surprised at the unwearied patience of 
the Lord with us, and at the boundless, endless 
grace of His forgiving love. In like manner, 
before the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is a 
convincing work of the Spirit upon us, leading us 
to see our necessity for a deeper experience, 
together with the fact that there is such an 
experience for us. And this convincing work has 
to be deep and thorough, to bring some of us out 
of our old ruts of theology and philosophy, and 
out of our self-will, and out of our fear of losing 
caste in the church — or of losing place, even — 
especially if we happen to be under salary as 
pastors, or in other responsible positions in the 
church or church enterprises, or happen to have 
much of the honor which comes from men. 

And, after this second experience, the Spirit 
dwelling in us has a great work to do, in which 
there may be many special stages, which may be 
called refreshings, renewings, girdings, or fillings. 
Such an one the Apostles and their fellow disciples 
had after the first trial of Peter and John, when 
they prayed, and the place where they were was 
shaken, and all were filled with the Holy Ghost 
anew. Then were they strengthened with might 
in the inner man, by the Spirit already dwelling 



VERY NIGH THEE. 31 

in them, and enabled to comprehend the length 
and breadth, and depth and height, and to know 
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and 
were filled with all the fullness of God. 

A similar refreshing no doubt followed the 
Ananias and Sapphira tragedy, and also the remark- 
able delivery of Peter from prison, and the won- 
derful manner in which Peter's Judaism was over- 
come by the vision on the housetop, and the 
preaching of Christ by him to the gentiles of Cor- 
nelius the centurion's household and circle ; and 
the manner in which Paul and Barnabas were sent 
forth on a mission to the gentile world, and the 
work of that night in Philippi, when Paul and 
Silas prayed and sang praises in the dungeon, and 
were released by an earthquake, and were instru- 
mental in saving both the lives and the souls of 
the jailor and his household, and many and many 
another scene recorded in the Acts and Epistles. 

None of these after-works of the indwelling 
Spirit should be confounded with the experience 
called the Baptism of the Spirit. Just as well 
might one call each anniversary of his wedding 
day a wedding, or each grand improvement of his 
estate, after he has come into his inheritance, an 
entrance upon the possession of his fortune. As 
we have one birth into the world, only one, though 
there may be many stages of growth, and some 



32 IX THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

recoveries to health, possibly, from the border of 
the grave, so there is one birth into the kingdom, 
only one, however many may be the after advances 
in the divine life, or recoveries from relapses into 
the world. 

And as there is one coming of age and entrance 
upon heirship, only one, whatever may follow 
after it, so there is one, only one Baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, though there may be many and very 
great and precious renewals or refreshings by the 
Spirit afterwards. 

Beloved, this second experience, great and 
blessed as it is, is very nigh thee. A glance at the 
facts will serve to show how it stands. 

The first great example clearly and definitely 
given, is that of the Apostles and disciples in the 
upper chamber on the day of Pentecost. Some 
of them, as their association with John the Baptist 
goes to show, must have received the Baptism of 
Repentance under John's ministry, more than 
three years before they received the Baptism of the 
Spirit. Others were converts under the ministry 
of Christ himself, and some of them, no doubt, 
had then been but recently brought to repentance. 
All, however, received the Baptism of the Spirit in 
the same hour. There was not a single exception. 

Amongst the joyous ones in Samaria, who accept- 
ed the Gospel at the lips of Philip, may have been 



VERY NIGH THEE. 33 

some who had been converted at the time the 
woman of Sychar was won by the Saviour at the 
Well of Jacob to believe in Him as the Messiah, 
and were renewed in their faith by the preaching 
of Philip ; and others, no doubt, who had just then 
believed for the first time, and were mere children 
in the faith. 

Yet here again, all,— and all alike, it would 
seem, — were prayed for by Peter and John, when 
they went down to Samaria, that they might 
receive the Holy Spirit, and all alike they did 
receive Him. 

So nigh was He to them that the moment they 
really believed in the Lord Jesus as the Giver of 
the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit as the Gift 
of God unto them, to abide in them, they received 
Him, every one of them, — those just born into the 
kingdom and those long before converted, the 
strong and the weak all alike. 

Just the same nearness is observable in the 
instance of Apollos, who had only to be instructed 
more perfectly in the way, as he was by Aquila 
and Priscilla, and immediately he entered into the 
deeper experience. The same was true of the 
twelve found by St. Paul at Ephesus. 

In every instance on record, without any refer- 
ence to the length of time that had transpired after 
the first experience, the second was received im- 



34 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

mediately when there was willingness and faith for 
its acceptance. 

The case of the three thousand who gladly- 
received the word on the day of Pentecost, stands 
alone, and is very instructive in one respect, if 
not in others also. It is too evident for question, 
from the fruits which follow immediately in the 
record, that they did receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost on the same day that they were baptized for 
the remission of sin. There were in their case two 
unusual things. First, there was before them in 
vivid display this wonderful experience in the case 
of the one hundred and twenty men and women 
who had that day received the gift of the Holy 
Ghost in the upper chamber, and who were so 
filled as to appear fairly intoxicated with this new 
wine of the kingdom. By this example they were 
impressed with the reality of the experience beyond 
measure. And then Peter, in answering their 
eager inquiry as to what they must do — do to 
obtain this wonderful gift, as well as to receive, 
remission of their sins, — told them first to repent 
and be baptized for the remission of sin, and that 
then they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
for the promise was unto them and to their chil- 
dren, and to all, even as many as the Lord our 
God should call. They obeyed and believed, and 
received the two baptisms the same day. 



VERY NIGH TREE. 35 

As an illustration of the way in which this was 
done listen to the story, as told by himself, of 

A LONG ISLAND FARMER. 

One day, in a union convention for the Higher 
Christian Life, a plain but fine looking man arose 
and gave an account of his experience. He said : 
"I have been listenen' to you all until I must speak. 
Maybe my experience won't tally with your'n, but 
I must tell it. The other night, down in our 
place in a meetin', I told 'em I must tell my experi- 
ence ; that I had an experience I wasn't ashamed 
to tell ; that if the Lord hadn't give me an experi- 
ence I needn't be ashamed of, I wouldn't tell it 
But as the Apostle Paul said to the Romans, I am 
not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of 
God unto salvation. Yes, my brethren, it is the 
power of God unto salvation to a pretty hard one 
in me, I can tell you. 

" I was religious afore I had religion, if you know 
what that means. Years ago 1 went forward and 
took my stand in the church, and went to meetin', 
and took the communion, but I hadn't salvation. 
All my religion was just my own doin's, and it was 
poor enough, you may know very well. 

" At last I heard some people talk, and sing, 
and pray, who had something that I hadn't got, 
and I knew it ; so I got very oneasy. Worse and 
4 



36 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

worse it come on me, and I couldn't shake it off, 
all I could do. It got so bad at last I couldn't 
sleep o'nights nor rest o'daytimes. I didn't know 
what was the matter of me. Finally I broke down, 
asked the brethren and sisters to pray for me, and 
begun to cry for mercy myself. 

" It wasn't long before I give myself up to the 
Lord, to be His forever. It was in my stack yard, 
there among the stacks. And then He spoke peace 
to my poor troubled soul, and I knew my sins were 
all forgiven. O, I knew it in a minute ; I knew it 
as well as I know I am here, and for a little, O I 
was so happy ! Jesus did seem so wonderful 
lovely to me. I got up and started to go into the 
house and tell my wife. But then, just afore I got 
out of the stack yard, something come to me like a 
voice in my heart, just as plain, it was, as if some- 
body had spoken it right out loud, and it said to 
me : ' You want something more,' and I said, « Do 
I, Lord ? Then, dear Lord, do give it to me,' and 
I went back and got down there before Him again, 
and He did give it to me right there. I don't know 
what to call it, but He just filled me full with the 
fullness of God. He just come in and took posses- 
sion of me. Why, I just give up to Him then my- 
self, and my wife, and my children, and horses, and 
wagons, and plows, and every thing, and I haint 
never took 'em back again, either. And He haint 



VERT NIGH THEE. 37 

never left me a single day, no, not for an hour, since 
that time. Afore that I loved money pretty well, 
— a little too well, — and I have more now than I 
had then, too, and yet I don't love it at all as I did 
then. It ain't mine. It is all the Lord's, and I love 
to use it for Him. My horses and wagon, too, they 
are the Lord's, and I love to use 'em for Him. If 
a poor widow needs a load hauled, I like to go 
and haul it for her. If my neighbor wants a garden 
plowed, and he hain't got a team, I just delight to 
do it for him, and not charge a cent for it, either. 
Once I meant to build me a fine house, but now I 
can't afford it, cause if I lived in a fine house I 
couldn't go to camp-meetins' and leave it, for fear it 
would get burnt or robbed. And then I couldn't 
do so much for the Lord's work, either, as I can 
now. I can serve the Lord better in the old house, 
and so I like to live in it, and don't want no new, 
fine one. 

" When I go to market now, the Lord He goes 
with me all the way, and I don't want to stop at 
them drinkin' places on the road, as I used to. I 
don't have to stop to light my pipe, either, for I 
give it up at once when the Lord filled me with 
Himself; for I felt that the Lord must have a 
clean temple to dwell in, and not one all filthy 
with the filthy weed. Aud I haint never had one 
bit o' desire to touch either rum or tobacco from 



38 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

then till now. And I do love the Lord and His 
people, no matter what name they call themselves 
by. I do love them, oh I can't tell you how I do 
love them. 

" Now I don't know what you'll think of my 
experience. Maybe it aint like yourn, but the 
Lord, He does satisfy my soul completely, and I 
want everybody to know Him, and I tell everybody 
about Him and what He has done for me. And 
He does bless it, for down in our place a good 
many are turning to the Lord, and we are having 
good times there. Blessed be His holy name. 
Hallelujah ! Praise the Lord ! " 

All who heard this farmer, took note of him, 
that, though unlearned, he had been with Jesus, 
and his story was abundantly confirmed by his 
neighbors. Evidently, he had received the Spirit 
immediately after having the evidence of forgive- 
ness. The two experiences were received by him 
in the same hour, there in his stack yard, as in the 
instance of the three thousand on the day of Pente- 
cost, in the Temple. 

Yes, beloved, it is very nigh thee. Believest 
thou not ? I know thou believest. The Lord 
bless thee, and lead thee to give all up to Him as 
the farmer did, and to accept all in Him, as he did, 
and to have Him abiding in you and filling yon 
evermore with the fullness of God. Amen. 



IV. 




EXCELLENCY OF THE POWER OF GOD f 

ES, and in God. In us only as God Him- 
self is in us, and attending us only as God 
Himself is with us. To be in the power 
of the Spirit, is to have the Spirit in His power 
with and within us. Beloved, how think ye of the 
Spirit ? Do you think of Him as a force or a being ? 
As an influence, or a person ? As an impartation 
from God, or as God's gift of Himself to us ? 

How think ye of the baptism of the Spirit ? As 
an influence from God poured forth upon man? 
Or as God Himself given unto and received by man 
to dwell in person in him forever ? 

Your speech will tell. The question is not what 
is your theory or theology of the Spirit, but what 
is your practical faith. You may theoretically or 
theologically hold to the personality, and so to the 
indivisibility of the Spirit, and yet practically 
believe in Him as you do in the impersonal forces 
of nature — heat, light, or electricity, — which may 
(39) 



40 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. . 

be parted and imparted in measure little or much, 
and received in quantity great or small. 

If the walls of your place of prayer should be 
questioned as to their echoes of your own words 
designating the Spirit and His works, what would 
they answer ? Would they tell of your habitual 
prayers for Him, or for it ? For His presence, or 
its influence ? The difference is immense. Be- 
tween the two there is a great gulf, passable only 
by the bridge of the actual experimental reception 
of the Spirit as a person, and that person God, to 
dwell in a person, and that person yourself. 

Our blessed Saviour never once spoke of the 
Spirit in impersonal, but always in personal terms. 
He did, indeed, compare Him to a living fountain 
— a fountain of life in the believer, from whom 
should issue rivefs of living water, — but this spake 
He of the Spirit as a person, not as an influence, 
because, so says the record, He, not it, was not 
yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. But 
always and everywhere our Lord used the personal 
terms He, Him, His, Whom, Whose, and not the 
impersonal fcims it, its, and which, of the Spirit. 

As a person Himself, our Saviour also Himself 
received the Spirit as a person to dwell in Him 
forever, and when He received the Spirit He gave 
Himself up to Him, to be led by Him whither- 
soever the Father would lead Him by the Spirit ; 



EXCELLENCY OF THE POWER OF GOD. 41 

and by Him He also spoke all His words and 
wrought all His works in the will of the Father. 
After the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, He 
prayed, and the heavens opened and the Spirit 
came down upon Him in dove-like form and abode 
upon Him, then led Him up into the wilderness to 
be tested by Satan, and when the devil had been 
foiled and had given up his efforts for the time, 
Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit,-— that 
is, having the Spirit in Him in undiminished, 
unhindered, unrestricted power, — into Galilee. 

The Apostle Peter, speaking of Jesus to Cor- 
nelius and his company, said of Him that God 
anointed — baptized — Him, with the Holy Ghost, 
and that He went about doing good, healing all that 
were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. 
The power that was in Him and with Him was 
the Holy Ghost Himself, leading Him, speaking 
through Him, and working by Him. 

The Apostles in like manner received the bap- 
tism of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, — or the 
gift of the Spirit, as Peter describes the wonderful 
boon, — that is, the Spirit given from the Father by 
the Son to them. And they never once fell into 
the mistake of speaking of Him in the impersonal 
forms, or praying for Him as absent from them, or 
as divisible and to be shed forth upon them by 
measure as an impersonal power or influence from 



42 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

God, but always recognized Him as in them in per- 
son and in power, and as proffered to all believers 
to dwell in them in like manner. 

Beloved, would not the same distinct apprehen- 
sion of the Holy Spirit as a person, and the same 
reception of Him by faith as given unto you from 
the Father by the Son, and the same recognition of 
Him as dwelling in you as a person in the fullness 
of the power of the Godhead to drive out all His 
enemies and yours, sanctify you to God, fill you 
with the, fullness of God, lead you into all the truth 
of God, guide you in all the will of God, speak by 
you all the words of God, and work in you and by 
you all the works of God ? Would not this free 
you from all fogs and mists of doubt and obscuri- 
ty ? Would it not be glorious, if true ? Would 
it not be true and real to you, if accepted by faith ? 
Try it and see. 

This is the power, — not a power abstract from 
God bestowed upon us of which we can speak in 
impersonal terms as it, its, and which, — but the 
power of God Himself given unto us in God's gift 
of Himself to us, and dwelling in us and with us 
in the person of God Himself in spirit and in truth 
in the fullness of His own power. 

The excellency of the power is just in this, that 
it is in God Himself in us and with us. In this it 
excels all other powers, as God Himself excels all 



EXCELLENCY OF THE POWER OF GOD. 43 

other beings. His power is limited in exercise 
only by His own will, and if He be in us and we 
be in His will, His power is all ours for whatever 
works He gives us to do. His power in us and 
our power in Him is absolutely unlimited for any- 
thing and everything under His leadership. 

The power of the Spirit in us and with us, excels 
every other imaginable power in perfection of adap- 
tation to us. He suits us completely. No other 
conceivable power could so meet the inmost and 
the utmost wants of our being. 

Much is said of the power of the human will, 
and there can come no good from belittling it. 
Exercised in obedience to the will of God, it is one 
of the grand, and glorious, and beneficent powers 
of our wonderful nature. Yet even in our earthly 
relations and in our own interior being, that which 
is most vital to peace and happiness does not 
obey our own will at all. The innermost part of 
our being we call the heart, out of which, the Lord 
tells us, are the issues of life ; and this heart is not 
under the direct power of our own will, but it is 
under the direct and complete control of the Spirit 
when we give ourselves up to Christ and He comes 
in to dwell in us. 

In our bodies we have muscles which are con- 
trolled by our will, and we have other muscles 
which are not at all subject to our will. Our hands 



U IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

and feet, our tongues, and all the members of our 
bodies which move or rest as we choose, obey the 
mandates of the will, but our hearts beat on or stop 
beating, not at our bidding, but whether we will or 
not. The very vital centre of our own bodily 
organism, out of which literally are all the arterial 
issues of physical life, is not at all under the direct 
control of our own will. God made it for His own 
control. We may say to our hearts " beat on," 
when they are growing faint in their action, or 
11 cease your violence," when they are rising to 
feverish excitement, but will they obey us ? Yet 
when God says beat on or stop, they instantly 
obey. 

Just so is it with the heart of our spiritual organ- 
ism. It was made to be God's own seat. En- 
throned in the heart, God by His Spirit sweetly 
controls, — nay, pours His own life, and love, and 
peace, and power through all the life-currents of 
our existence. He fills the soul with Himself. He- 
says, Let there be light, and there is light. He 
breathes His own love in and through it, and it is 
filled with love. He speaks p.eace, and there is a 
great calm. He makes His own rest in the soul, 
and the soul enters into God's own rest. He 
unfolds the things of His own kingdom to the soul, 
and the kingdom of God reigns within. He works 
in the soul according to His own pleasure, and the 



EXCELLENCY OF TILE POWER OF GOD. 45 

power of God is in the willing and in the doing 
according to God's will. 

We ourselves, in the fullest strength of our own 
will stimulated to the utmost by the law of God, 
find it true that to will is present with us, but how 
to do we find not. But when, through faith in 
Jesus the bestower, we receive the Holy Spirit to 
abide in us, and commit to Him the work of work- 
ing in us to will and to do, then we find it as easy 
to do as to will, because all the power of God is in 
both the willing and the doing. 

He fits us perfectly. He made us for Himself 
to dwell in. Our bodies are as perfectly suited to 
God for His habitation as they are to us to be the 
tenement of our souls. 

Moreover, as instruments for God's work, we 
suit Him to all intents and purposes if we are given 
up to Him for His use in everything. He can 
speak by us as He spake by holy men of old. He 
can write by us, print by us, preach by us, teach 
by us, give by us, do anything and everything by 
us. It suited our dear Lord just as well to raise 
iEneas up by the power of the Spirit at the word of 
Peter, when he said, u iEneas, Jesus Christ maketh 
thee whole," as it did by the same power to raise 
up the poor man at the pool of Siloam, when lie 
did it in person by His own word at His own lips, 
saying to him, " Eise, take up thy bed and walk." 



46 IN THE BO WEB OF THE SPIRIT. 

It suits Him now to work by us as He did by 
Himself when He was here in the body, any work, 
however great or small it may be ; and if we have 
faith in Him He will work by us any work that He 
would Himself do if here in the body, because the 
power is the same power in either case — the power 
of the Spirit. 

Beloved, is this too great a boon to accept? It 
is not too great for God to give. Why should 
God's gift of Himself in Spirit and in reality to us 
to dwell in us, be thought a thing incredible ? It 
is just the complement — the completion — of what 
He has done and you have accepted already. He 
has given His Son for you and to you as your 
atoning, forgiving, justifying Saviour, and you have 
accepted Him. Yet complete as is this gift of God 
Himself in the person of His Son for you, and com- 
pletely as you believe yourself to be justified in 
Him as the Lord, your Righteousness, you find 
yourself incomplete in sanctification to God, and all 
your groanings over your unsanctified nature, and 
all your endeavors and prayers for sanctification, do 
not bring it or produce it in completeness ; they 
do not set you apart permanently and fully to God ; 
they fail to free you from the dominion of your 
sins. 

Now why should it be thought a thing incredi- 
ble that God, who has given Himself in the person 



EXCELLENCY OF THE POWER OF GOD. 47 

of His Son ; that Christ, who has given Himself in 
His own person to die for you and redeem you to 
Himself, should take you to Himself and give 
Himself to you in the person of His Spirit, to 
dwell in you and sanctify you, — set you apart 
wholly to Himself and for Himself, and dwell in 
you forever ? 

As well think it incredible that a man who had 
planned a house in all things to suit himself, 
bought all the materials with his own money and 
built the house for his own occupany, should not 
be willing to come into it, and occupy it, and hold 
it, and use it for himself when it was done. 

The incoming of God by His Spirit into you, and 
His indwelling in you in all the fullness of His tri- 
personality — power, love, light, peace and joy, — is 
just the completion of what He has already done 
for you and given to you. It is the possession- 
taking and permanent occupancy of the purchased 
and prepared habitation of His own choice for 
Himself. Your consent only is needed to the 
completion of His purpose, and of your complete- 
ness in Him. Beloved, will you, do you believe ? 
Do you consent ? 



V. 



INFIRMITIES. 



S 'S there any remedy in this life for our consti- 
tutional infirmities and habitual weaknesses ? 
511 Yes, a perfect remedy and a glorious one, 
glorious for us and glorifying to God. Turn them 
over to Jesus for cure. Nay rather commit yourself, 
infirmities, weaknesses and all, just as you are to 

Him and see what He will do with vou and with 

j 

them. Our blessed Lord has a way of turning our 
very weaknesses to account for His own glory, and 
for our good. Our weakness gives opportunity for 
His strength, and in our weakness His strength is 
made perfect. 

In the days of the bodily presence of Jesus 
among men, the bodily infirmities of those amongst 
whom He lived, brought by their cure a revenue 
of glory to God, which else had never been seen. 
So now in the days of His spiritual presence 
amongst us, our spiritual infirmities through His 
perfect mastery of them, bring glory to Him, which 

(48) 



INFIRMITIES. 49 

all the natural amiabilities of disposition and equa- 
bilities of temper and native freedom from great 
weaknesses never could do. 

When Jesus, in passing out of the temple where 
His life was threatened, found by the wayside a 
man that was born blind, and was asked by His dis- 
ciples, Who did sin, this man or his parents that he 
was born blind ? He answered, u Neither, but that 
the works of God might be manifested in him. I 
must work the works of God while it is day." 
Then He healed the man and let him go, and the 
healed man was a life long miracle of glory to God. 
Side by side there has come down to us through 
the ages two things, glory to God through- this 
man's blindness healed, and shame to the men in 
the temple whose sight was good, but who drove 
the Lord of glory out of His own temple that same 
day by threatening to put Him to death. Yes, and 
glory to God will go down through the eternities 
from the healing of that one man more than from 
the perfect sight of the ninety and nine in the tem- 
ple who needed no healing. 

When a man of violent temper is made meek by 
committing himself to Jesus and having the 
strength of Christ made perfect in his weakness, 
it brings a ceaseless revenue of glory to God 
which all the equable tempers in the world could 
not do. 



50 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

More marvelous still is the other side of this thing. 
How shall it be stated ? The principle is given by 
the Apostle Paul in saying, When I am weak, then 
am I strong. Yes, and so he was, and so is every 
one who in his weakness commits himself for de- 
liverance and keeping to Christ. Equally true 
also was it of Paul, and is of every one else fully 
given up to the Lord, where I am weak there am 
I strong. 

Moses was a servant of God, born and bred to 
be, and taught that he was to become, the deliv- 
erer of the Lord's people, yet his spirit must have 
been any thing but meek. If we may believe the 
tradition concerning him, he was a man of blood, a 
warrior, a hero. As captain of the Egyptian hosts 
he had overthrown the Ethiopians and liberated 
Egypt before he in his own will and way under- 
took the liberation of Israel. Whether this tradi- 
tion is true or not, his natural and habitual violence 
is seen in his first attempt at the rescue of his peo- 
ple in the killing of the Egyptian who strove with 
the Israelite. Yet this Moses became the proverb 
of meekness for all ages : where he was weak there 
he became strong. 

Saul of Tarsus — the very mention of the name 
starts forth to the view the bitterness and fierce- 
ness of the man breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter — exceeding mad against the followers 



INFIRMITIES. 51 

of the Meek and Lowly One. Yet who so meek 
and gentle as he when committed to Christ so that 
he could say The life I now live I live by the faith 
of the Son of God. I live, nevertheless, not I, but 
Christ liveth in me. 

Simon Peter exemplifies the same thing even 
more palpably. Simon Peter's weakness was of 
another sort, — impulsiveness. Moses and Saul 
were fierce for the right as they conceived it. 
Peter was carried away by impulse right or wrong. 
Impulsiveness appears very strong but is really 
very weak, roars like a lion when the enemy is in 
the distance — but runs away like a hind when he 
approaches. Peter's boasting was not put on, but 
felt. He really felt that though all besides him 
should forsake Christ, yet he would stand firm — 
would die with Him. So again he really felt all 
the fear he showed when he cowered before the 
accusing maid, and denied that he knew Jesus, and 
confirmed his denial with oaths and imprecations. 
He was impulsive, and impulsive people, though 
strong in expression, are weak as water, driven 
this way or the contrary way, by every wind. 

But now mark the transformation. Where 
Peter was weak before he received his second bap- 
tism, there, from the moment he received it, he 
was strong. He was the first to rise up before the 
Jerusalem populace who had put Christ to death, 
5 



52 IK THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT, 

and for fear of whom he had so quailed, and to tell 
them boldly that they had killed the Prince of 
Life. The fearless one also he was before the 
grand court of his nation, and when charged not 
to speak or to teach in the name of Jesus and 
threatened with death if he should, he could an- 
swer their threatenings, by saying, Whether it be 
right to hearken unto you, more than unto God, 
judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things we 
do know and testify the things we have seen. 

The glory of Christ as our Redeemer is that His 
blood atones perfectly for our sins; and His glory 
as our Saviour is that He saves us perfectly from 
our sins in spite of every infirmity of body or 
spirit, of constitution or habit. And the crowning 
glory of the whole is, that in the very point where 
we are weakest, by nature or habit, there we are 
strongest through grace. The greater the weak- 
ness the more perfectly we lean on Jesus, and the 
more perfectly His strength avails us. 

It is the old, old story over again. Those in the 
days of His flesh, who had spent all their living on 
the doctors and were nothing better but worse for 
it all, and who had no other hope, came to Jesus 
and were perfectly healed, while those who were 
not half so badly diseased and had good hopes of 
slow recovery by their own remedies or by the 
skill of physicians, or at least of being saved from 



INFIRMITIES. 53 

dying, stayed away from Christ and lived on in 
their diseased condition, or died from its eUects. 
The worst were made the best, and the best became 
the worst. 

Those who become so weary of their infirmities, 
temper, pride, vanity, avarice, lust, whatever else, 
and so despairing of every other way as to fly to 
Christ and give themselves over into His hands for 
deliverance and keeping, find the remedy perfect, 
glorious. Those who stay away from Christ, or 
look to Him only to help them — that is, look to 
Him to whom the whole work of saving belongs, 
to help them do Ills work — go on to the bitter 
end unsaved. 

A HOUSEKEEPER 

was sadly troubled with the infirmity of a hasty 
temper. Long habit confirmed her in the second 
nature of sharp words. She was a good woman, a 
good Christian as the term goes, but though she 
would rather have lost her right hand, or her head, 
than have given up her Saviour, yet her weakness 
was too strong for her. All her good resolutions 
were put to flight in a moment by any one of the 
every day crosses of the housekeeper's life. 

This woman had learned her weakness, and 
would have given all the world to be free from it, 
but saw no hope of it until death. 



54 IX THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

At last, however, she heard of a convention for 
higher life and went to it. Jesus a Saviour from 
sin was the theme. Many testimonies were given 
to the fact that Jesus does save from their sins all 
who put their trust in Him. Hope that she might 
be saved sprang up in her heart. She pondered 
the matter. In her kitchen, engaged about her 
work, she turned it over and over in her mind. 
The question came up in this form, c Such a hasty 
temper as mine so long indulged, how can it ever 
be overcome ? If I could only have time to think 
when a provocation comes, I might look to Jesus 
and He would save me, but before I have time to 
think, my temper is up and my tongue loose. If 
there was only some way of thinking beforehand — 
but stay — that Jesus can do for me if He is in me. 
Yes, the dear Jesus is quicker than even my quick 
temper, and He can be beforehand with that and 
with the tempter too. Yes, that is it — Why ! 
How is it I never saw this before ? Yes, Jesus 
can keep me.' So she began rejoicing in Jesus as 
able to keep her blameless in all times of provoca- 
tion. And it was a great joy to her. 

Afterwards she became somewhat perplexed 
with the question of giving all up for Jesus, and 
how she should know when she had come to the 
end of it and had given up the last thing. Then 
came to her the grand truth that it was only to give 



INFIRMITIES. 55 

herself up, and all was given up, and this she 
could do and did do with delight. 

So given up, and so trusting in Jesus, she found 
herself perpetually and entirely the Lord's, and 
proved by happy and continual experience His 
keeping power. He was always quicker than the 
temper and the tempter. 

It was not this woman, but another who had 
come to the same position of faith in Jesus, who 
shortly after was put to the test in a way that 
brought glory to God in her soul, and from her 
tongue, in a very unexpected moment and way. 
She was in her kitchen making preserves. On her 
stove was a kettle full and boiling. In her hand 
she held a glass jar-full just done. Seeing the ket- 
tle about to boil over, she turned quickly to put 
down the jar in her hand, and broke it, and away 
went the preserves mingled with broken glass all 
over every thing. For the first time in her life, 
under such circumstances, a great calm pervaded 
her soul, and instead of the usual exclamations of 
angry vexation, she cried out in the joy of her heart, 
Glory to God. 

An extreme example, all the stronger for the 
strength of the infirmity before it was turned over 
to Jesus for cure, and for the perfection of the cure 
when committed to Him, is that of 



56 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

A PUGILIST SAVED. 

He is now one of the truest, noblest Christian 
workers in the world. He was the belt winner 
and wearer in his native town. Up to his ninth 
year he was not an unamiable boy. At nine his 
father gave him to the boy's uncle, a pugilist, who 
put him at once in training for the ring. At six- 
teen he won the belt. Before he was seventeen 
the Lord had arrested and converted him. He was 
a wonder to many. His fellow pugilists coveted 
him, and were not going to give him up if they 
could help it. They conspired for his fall. With 
the subtlety of the serpent, and his venom, too, 
they put forward one of their number to insult him 
in the street in presence of many. The device 
was successful ; the insult came, and in a moment 
the insulter was stretched upon the ground under 
a heavy blow from the insulted one. The moment 
the blow was struck, the heart of him who gave it 
smote him more heavily than his hand had smitten 
his fellow. He instantly withdrew to weep, and 
lament, and repent in secret. Afterwards he con- 
fessed and humbled himself in public, and felt 
restored. And O, how he resolved to watch and 
pray! 

Another trap was set by the conspirators, and 
another one of their number was felled to the 
ground. Then followed shame, repentance, con- 



INFIRMITIES. 67 

fession, restoration again, and a resolution this time 
to look instantly to Jesus if another provocation 
should come. Still a third, then a fourth, and 
finally a fifth re-enactment of the same thing 
occurred. Poor fellow ! He tried everything he 
could think of — faith and prayer as well as resolu- 
tions and vows. His faith, however, had this 
subtle mistake about it, that he trusted to his own 
quickness of thought in looking to Jesus before the 
impulse to strike should be carried out But alas! 
he found his thoughts and his look came too late. 
Finally, in despair of every thing else, he gave 
himself up to Jesus as he was, in utter helpless- 
ness, for keeping, and has been perfectly kept from 
that moment. The conspirators egged him, and 
even stoned him, in the street, but the only and 
the instant feeling toward them in his heart was that 
of pity and compassion. A singular and wonder- 
ful meekness pervades his spirit, and though he 
has the physique of the pugilist and a sledge-ham- 
mer fist, the gentleness of Christ is seen in all his 
looks, and the tenderness of a woman in the touch 
of his hand and tones of his voice. 

Well may we, then,, with St Paul, rather glory 
in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
upon us, and the- glory of God be seen in the vic- 
tory over us that He gains. 



VI. 



IN EVERY-DAY LIFE. 




BIDING union with Jesus hallows all 
things. It is everywhere precious. No- 
where is it more blessed than in every* 
day life. Jesus makes our earthly cares more than 
a heavenly discipline. He transmutes them into 
a present heavenly service. We sing in our sweet 
Sabbath morning hymn — 

" From all our worldly cares set free, 
May we rest this day in Thee.'* 

But in abiding union with Jesus there is free- 
dom and rest sweet as heaven in, not from, all 
our so-called earthly cares, because in all we are 
serving our loving Saviour as truly, and pleasing 
Him as fully, as when engaged in the prayer 
and praise of the Christian assembly, or in the 
labor of love in the Sabbath school, or in the 
precious communion of the closet. The whole 
of life in all its relations, and in every calling and 
transaction, becomes a sweet Sabbath keeping, a 
(58) 



IN EVERY DAY LIFE. 59 

constant rest, a ceaseless incense, a joyous offering, 
a living sacrifice, an endless walk with God, a 
patient race in companionship with Jesus, a life- 
long overcoming position in Christ, a present joint 
heirship with Him in God. 

The very first step, the threshold of the abid- 
ing, brings one to the position to have this trans- 
formation of every-day life made complete, if there 
be no drawing back from it, and if it be clearly 
and intelligently entered upon. An example will 
best show this. 

A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN, 

in the following letters, shows clearly the differ- 
ence between the fitful, divided life he has hitherto 
been leading, and the united abiding life into 
which he has now come. But the chief thing in 
his statement, of interest for us in this connec- 
tion, is the light it flings upon the way in which 
entrance into the abiding prepares one to make 
earthly cares a heavenly service. Immediately 
after coming consciously into full union with 
Jesus he wrote one of his friends : 

My Dear Brother in Jesus : 

lie has made me make a full consecration of myself to 
Himself, and His infinite love has made me a new man. 
I cannot keep my eyes from tears, nor my lips from 
glorifying Him. This poor body of mine has become 



60 IX THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the temple of the Holy Ghost. From henceforth "for 
me to live is Christ, to die gain." In Jesus, yours, 



At or about the same time he wrote to another 
friend, as follows : 

Glory ! Glory! My dear, dear U 



We are now one forever in the Lord. Jesus has so 
sweetly taken possession of me, and I have given up 
myself completely to Him. I am saved with an ever- 
lasting salvation. Sin shall have no more dominion over 
me. O the sweet love of Jesus ! 

The Book is Illuminated now, and my first lesson 
when I opened it, to my open eyes, was : — " If ye shall 
ask anything in My name I will do it. If ye love Me 
keep My commandments, and I will pray the Father and 
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide 
with you forever ; the Spirit of truth, whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither know- 
eth Him ; but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth with you 
and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless ; 
I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world 
seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live ye 
shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in 
my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." — John xiv. 
14 — 20. How easy it is to give up everything for Him ! 
Now I am going to let Him use me, and work through 
me. Pray that I may have an ever-increasing joy and 
love, and that the victory over self be forever complete. 
One in our dear Lord. . 

The point at which these letters touch every- 
day life is that of the willing consecration of every 



IN EVERY DAY LIFE. 61 

thing in life to Jesus, which Jesus Himself had 
wrought in the heart of His servant. His life 
before had been a divided one. The every day 
sphere was separated from the religious sphere of 
his life. His home and business life, except in 
so far as it embraced the stated worship at the 
household altar, the hours of religious study, the 
moments of secret devotion, and occasional Chris- 
tian intercourse by the way, w T as for himself and 
for his wife and children. His religious life 
was for Christ, with this large discount, however, 
from even the partial or divided fealty to the 
Lord, that self intruded into it all. But now, all 
in both spheres was given up to the Lord, his 
home and business life, as well as his religious life. 
The position into w 7 hich this entire consecration 
brought him, in relation to home and business life, 
is shown beautifully in a flash, in the following 
letter written afterwards : 

My dear Brother in Jesus : 

Since He so sweetly made me give up everything for 
Ilim, I have been continually rejoicing. I love Him 
with all my heart, — incomparably beyond all else ; and 
yet, strange to say, I love my wife, children, friends, 
with a far fuller love than before, — hate no one in the 
world. All anxiety too about my dear children has gone. 
As I look upon them, tears of joy fill my eves. 

The dear Lord is my beloved friend. I can trust 
Ilim. Each morning as I dress, / wash more carefully 



62 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

what was a ivretclied body, but is now, though unchanged 
in itself, the temple of the Holy Ghost. I have no anxiety 
about my sins, because He is within me and fights off 
every temptation. " To me to live is Christ." O how 
wonderful it is ! " As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in 
Thee, that they may be one in Us." You and I, and 
our dear wives, will forever sing — 

" Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ! " 



In the other letter the point was that of the new 
consecration, embracing every thing, in every-day 
life as well as in religious life. In this, the point 
is the new position for every-day life, into which 
this new consecration brought him. The facts in 
this new position are all the more vividly, because 
undesignedly, indicated. 

1. A new and sacred love of all things precious 
in the every-day life. 

2. A new and sacred sense that in the care of 
all these things, given up by him to the Lord, and 
recommitted by the Lord to him, he was serving 
and pleasing the Lord. 

3. A new, and sweet and full confidence that 
all he had given up to the Lord, and now held 
as the Lord's, would be securely kept and tenderly 
cared for by the Lord Himself. 

Taken together they make this one great precious 
reality : that he had now come to accept all things 
in every-day life as part and parcel of his sacred 



IN EVERY DAY LIFE. 63 

partnership with Christ, and in them all saw Christ 
and loved Him and served Him just as truly as in 
his religious life. 

O how significant the words— -what newness of 
home and social life they indicate : " Strange to say, 
I love my wife, children, friends, with a far fuller 
love than before." 

And if possible, yet more so the words : " Each 
morning, as I dress, I wash more carefully what 
was a wretched body, but is now the temple of the 
Holy Ghost." How these expressions let the new 
light of Christ in his soul, shine out ! How they 
flash forth the new and sacred love and care he 
felt for what before had little or no sacredness 
about it, but now had become so wonderfully and 
sweetly sacred, because it all belonged to Jesus! 
O how precious now were the daily cares of his 
home life ! And how delightful the knowledge 
that in them all he was serving and pleasing his 
loving Lord! 

The new and wonderful confidence in the Lord, 
which filled his heart with peace and joy and 
hope, in regard to the loved ones of his home, is 
shown in the words, " All anxiety, too, about my 
children, has gone. As I look upon thern, tears of 
joy fill my eyes." O how expressive! One can 
see him standing amidst his little flock, with his 
new and strange love, care and confidence welling 



64 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

up in his heart, glistening in his tears, shining in 
his illuminated face, in emotions of inexpressible 
tenderness and delight, because now all are the 
Lord's, and are his to care for in the Lord, and yet 
the Lord's, most tenderly cared for by Him. No 
wonder his cheeks are bedewed ! No wonder his 
heart swells with unutterable things. No wonder 
his face shines ! One can see him too, though of 
this he does not speak, going forth to his affairs in 
the same spirit, transacting business as in the 
Lord, for the Lord, to the Lord, led by the Spirit 
of the Lord. 

All summed up in one it is this, — the hitherto 
divided life of this dear child of God has now 
become a unit. His every-day life and his religious 
life have been married, and become one and insep- 
arable. The every-day life has exchanged the 
name Secular for Sacred, and has become Sacred 
as truly as any bride becomes one with her hus- 
band. And over all his life there has come a 
cloud of glory, a transfiguring power, which makes 
it to shine and glisten with a heavenly radiance, 
and thus his earthly cares have become a heavenly 
service. 

Now mark this one thing, beloved, as here 
illustrated ; it was with a heart made icilling by 
the power of the Holy Ghost, in response to 
faith in Christ, that this man gave every thing up 



IN EVERY BAY LIFE. 65 

for Christ. Wherefore his example says to you 
trust in Jesus, and look to Him to make you 
willing in like manner. If you do, it will surely 
be according to your faith. 

Yes, and mark, too, this other thing. When 
you do look to Jesus, and He does make you wil- 
ling by the power of the Holy Ghost, and you do 
give up every thing to Him, He will keep from 
you the vile things you gave up to Him, and them 
only ; and will give back to you every precious 
thing infinitely enhanced in preciousness, by your 
sweet partnership in them all, with your loving 
Saviour. 

Thus much for the position into which this 
consecration of every thing in life — that is of one's 
self in every thing to Christ, brings the conse- 
crated one. Now for the marvellous benefits of 
this position. What are they ? 

A whole chapter or book might be devoted to 
unfolding them — a few lines must suffice, and these 
shall be given to a single example. V 

A CRISIS IN THE LIFE OF A BOOK-KEEPER. 

One evening a young man called. He was 
agreeable in manners, good looking, well dressed, 
and there was an air of sadness in look and tone 
which took hold upon my sympathies. His story 
was told with beautiful frankness. It was this: 



66 12? THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

he was head book-keeper in a large commercial 
house, and had the confidence alike of employers 
and subordinates, but was overworked, losing 
health, his relish for business gone ; he made mis- 
takes, found it hard to detect and correct them, 
was in danger of losing the respect of employers 
and helpers, feared he was losing his memory, was 
even afraid his brain was softening, had to ask an 
extension of vacation for rest last summer, and 
feared he would have to request a still greater 
extension this summer, or give up his position 
entirely. 

Altogether his case seemed one for a physician 
rather than for me, but I looked up, and light came. 

" You are a Christian, of course ? " 

"Yes." 

" Consecrated ? " 

" Yes ; as far as I know." 

" In .active work ? " 

" Yes ; and I love it dearly. If I could only 
find some situation in which I could serve God all 
the time, I think I might come out all right." 

" Well, can you not ? " 

" No ; I have tried, but in vain." 

" But you can." 

" Where, pray ? " 

" Just where you are." 

" What do you mean ? " 



IN EVERY DAY LIFE, 67 

" Just what I say. Give yourself up to serve 
God just where you are, 

' ' 'Tis He appoints our daily lot, 
And He does all things well." 

<6 Accept your present position as from Him and 
for Him. Accept the fact that He will be as well 
pleased with faith-service in your counting room as 
in your prayer or Sunday school room. Accept, 
also, the fact that He will give you the Holy Spirit 
to dwell in you, quicken you, strengthen you, and 
guide you in posting books, making balance sheets, 
footing up columns of figures and correcting mis- 
takes, just as freely and fully as in praying and 
speaking, if you do it in faith. He is no respecter 
of places, any more . than of persons, and gives 
wisdom and strength to all who trust Him and 
serve Him, in whatever vocation or work He calls 
them to undertake." 

The young man heartily accepted the fact. The 
Lord wrote the truth in his heart, and he went to 
his lodgings joyous in the Lord. 

Shortly afterward came a letter from him, saying 
in substance : 

" I am a new man. My counting room is a 
new world. 

'Jesus all the day long, is my joy and my song. 1 n 
6 



VII- 




PRECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. 

NEW settler in the deep, deep forest of 
Indiana twenty-five years ago, became 
troubled about his salvation. He was 
plowing to plant a new field. The trees had 
been cut down and burned up, but their stumps 
and roots remained. The field was much like 
many a heart, — sins forgiven, and soil opened 
to the good seed, but stumps and roots still there. 
His plow every now and then struck a root, 
just where it was unlooked for, and provoked 
him. His horses though not vicious, had spirit 
enough to catch the temper of their master. The 
plow > too, seemed to be of the same mind with 
its owner ; so also did the harness and every thing. 
The plow caught, horses kicked, harness broke> and 
he scolded, and whipped,, and fretted, and fumed. 
The devil seemed to be in roots and horses and 
plow and harness,, but the farmer never thought 
that the wicked one was in him. He blamed 
every body and every thing but himself. 
(68) 



PBECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. 69 

After a weary, weary day, so full of vexations 
that he had a hundred times wished himself dead, 
in the night he gave himself up to the Lord Jesus 
Christ to be His forever. A great peace came over 
him. The way to heaven opened up to him as 
plainly as to Jacob at Bethel. 

In the morning his cabin seemed all changed. 
His wife and children, O how lovely and precious ! 
He thought he had never loved them half so well, 
or done half so much to make them happy as he 
ought to have done. O how loving and tender 
now to them were his words and tones ! 

He went forth with his team into the field. It 
was like a new world to him. The tender mercy 
and loving kindness of the Lord appeared to be 
over all His works. The trees clapped their hands, 
the birds sang praises, the morning sun poured a 
flood of joy over all, and the very stumps looked 
lovely. The horses caught the spirit of their 
master, and were gentle and docile. The plow and 
harness behaved admirably, and the hidden roots 
so provoking before, seemed to have had the evil 
one cast out of them. 

The secret of all was this, and he had learned it, 

THAT OUT OF UNION WITH THE LORD, ALL THINGS 

ARE OUT OF JOINT. 
IN UNION WITH JESUS, ALL THINGS ARE HEAVENLY. 

This was this man's first acquaintance with Jesus, 



70 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

and if such a change in one's daily life is produced 
for the time by one's first acquaintance with Jesus, 
what must it be, what is it in truth, when one 
comes into full and abiding union with Him, and 
is kept in perfect peace because his mind is 
stayed on Him ? 

And if Jesus in the field, 'amongst dumb brutes, 
and dead stumps and roots, is so precious, what 
must He be — what is He in fact, in the household, 
amongst the priceless immortal ones committed to 
our charge ? 

A wife, whose husband was a zealous servant 
of Jesus in the ministry of His word, had a hard 
time of it. Her sweet little flock was too large for 
her. Her children were young, and near to each 
other in age ; and each one, like their father and 
mother, had decided traits of their own. Riches 
had not placed them in command of an over-stock 
of servants. They were not oppressed with a 
superabundant salary. She had to be nurse, 
governess, cook, chambermaid, and servant of all 
works, and he had to be hostler, woodsawyer, er- 
rand-boy out-o'doors, and general assistant within. 
Yes, she had a hard time, and at last began to be 
worn in body and weary in spirit. Matters grew 
worse instead of better. The children were harder 
and harder to manage, and the burden of life 
heavier and heavier to be borne. 



PRECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. 71 

She was a truly converted woman, and had a 
good hope of heaven, — -and in truth often wished 
herself there. The Lord at length increased her 
burden by bringing to her a guest invited by her 
husband. She accepted it cheerfully as she could; 
dreaded it mainly lest her guest should be put to 
discomfort. Not forgetting hospitality it proved 
that they entertained an angel unawares. This 
guest was in full trust and in the abiding — kept 
in perfect peace, filled with the love of Jesus, the 
fullness of God. Through her sweet influence the 
children became more docile and manageable, and 
the mother learned the precious privilege of salva- 
tion from fret and worry and anxiety and every 
sin, by faith in Jesus, and accepted it in her heart. 
She believed icith Iter heart unto righteousness ; 
but as yet she had not confessed icith her mouth 
unto salvation. She believed and was right, had 
rest and victory. Her fret and worry and burden, 
were gone ; but she had not yet the joy of the 
Lord, which is the strength of the soul. 

Not long after the first guest had gone, the Lord 
doubled the good woman's burden of hospitality, 
by sending two other gue&ts, servants of His, whom 
He had brought into like precious faith. He 
doubled also the blessing. Through them she was 
taught the sweet lesson of confession with the 
mouth unto salvation. First she opened her lips 



72 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

in -prayer with and for her husband, at home ; then 
in a meeting in both prayer and testimony ; and 
then came the joy of the Lord indeed into her 
soul. All her work and all her cares had been 
wonderfully sweetened, and thus wonderfully light- 
ened and brightened before ; but now all this was 
doubled over to her more and more. 

The reins of government by law had almost en- 
tirely slipped from her hands, but now she took up 
the reins of government by grace through faith — a 
faith working by love, and purifying the heart of 
the family, O how sweetly ! from tne old spirit of 
selfishness, strife, temper, and heart-burnings. 

The children saw it, and the eldest, who was 
hardest to manage and most disposed to take the 
reins instead of yielding obedience, a Christian 
before, gave herself up anew to Christ, in trust, to 
be saved and kept by His power from all her way- 
wardness, willfulness, and from every sin, and at 
once she became a great help and comfort to her 
mother. The younger ones felt it, and were softened 
by the atmosphere of love which had come to per- 
vade their home. 

The father saw it. He saw the wonders done 
for his wife, and scarcely less for his child, and his 
home, and was convinced. Before that, he had 
questioned whether he himself had not come into 
all he had heard unfolded in public and private 



PRECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. 73 

teachings and testimony, but now he saw that there 
was indeed a precious power of love and light in 
Jesus, into which his wife and child had come, to 
which he was yet experimentally a stranger. 

This he frankly accepted as true, and publicly 
confessed, and that same night after he had done it, 
the Lord sweetly came to him upon his bed in the 
night watches, and asked : — 

" What shall we then say ? shall we continue in 
sin that grace may abound ? Nay, God forbid : for 
how can we, who are dead to sin, live any longer 
therein ? " 

To this he replied in his heart : " How can I be 
dead to sin ? " The answer was : — "Be it unto 
thee according to thy faith." 

Then instantly his soul was filled with joy in 
Jesus, as his own personal, present Saviour from 
sin. Time after time during that night when he 
had fallen asleep, his Beloved came in the voices 
of love, and awakened him, and gave him songs in 
the night : and next morning, in the public assem- 
bly, he gave glory to God, confessing with child- 
like simplicity that his own precious wife and child, 
and the manifest change in them and in the atmos- 
phere of his home, had been the Lord's convincing 
voice to him to induce him to seek and receive this 
new and wondrous grace. 

Thus was a household transformed, filled with 



74 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the sweetness of love, and governed by the Saviour 
Himself. 

Those perplexed with the cares of a family often 
think that it would be impossible for them to be 
kept in perfect peace. They say in their hearts, 
" Ministers and missionaries may be, and ought to 
be : but it is not for the mothers of large families, 
and the keepers of large household establishments." 
Yet of all people, they amongst the most of all, 
need this very keeping, and would be most blest 
by it. Still, when they hear about it they are al- 
ways perplexed to know how it can be. 

One of these perplexed ones was brought into 
the light in a singular way. For several days she 
had been hearing testimonies and teachings on the 
subject, but was thoroughly perplexed. At last 
she made up her mind to try one day more, and 
then if she could not understand it, give it all up. 
That evening the Lord sent one to take tea with 
her, with a message for her deliverance. She told 
her guest her perplexity, and said that her mind 
was made up not to go any more to the meetings, 
and added, " One thing I find, trusting the Lord 
does not do one's housework, or get it done, when 
she is away. I went to meeting this morning, 
leaving every thing arranged and provided, and 
came back to find every thing wrong; my faith 
didn't make the servants do right." 



PRECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. lb 

Her guest replied saying : — ' l Did you ask the 
Lord to make them do right, and believe that He 
would do it ? " 

" No. " 

" Then you just hoped He would do it without 
asking." 

" Yes. " 

" Well, where then did faith come in ? That 
was hoping, not believing : it was simply presump- 
tion. Faith asks, and receives. Faith is careful for 
nothing, because confident that the Lord cares for 
us : but it makes all its requests known unto God 
with thanksgiving by prayer and supplication." 

The true idea of a life of faith instantly flashed 
into her soul, and looking into the perfect law of 
liberty she continued therein, and the very first 
day of her life in fullness of faith was the sweetest 
of all her life up to that time. Shortly afterwards, 
she said to a company of fellow Christians : " It 
pays ; I tell you it pays. That was the first day 
for many a long year that my temper had not been 
ruffled. My children and servants felt the influ- 
ence. My boy came to me at night, and kissing 
me, said, * My own dear, dear mother ! I am going 
to be a better boy after this.' Another of my chil- 
dren said, ' Mother, I do want to become a Christian.' 
A third one said, ' I mean to lead a different life 
after this ! ' Yes, 1 tell you it does pay." 



7G IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Yes indeed it does pay. There is no period or 
line of life in which it does not pay. If any one 
is in any position or profession or business in which 
he cannot have the presence and guidance and 
blessing of the Lord, faith will soon bring him out 
of it, and that will pay. And to every one who is 
in that to which the Lord has called him, faith will 
ensure wisdom and guidance and blessing from the 
Lord, and that will pay. 

The truth is that in every walk and work of life 
which is of God, each and all of His dear children 
have the assurance by promise that God will be 
with them : that they may trust fully in Jesus ; 
and that they will have the Holy Spirit with them 
and in them, to teach them, guide them, keep 
them, and bless them ; so that they shall them- 
selves be right and do right, and all things shall 
go well with them. 

Lavater, the celebrated physiognomist, told Stil- 
ling, the equally celebrated oculist, that the Lord 
answered his prayers in his childhood, and lifted 
him out of difficulties in his studies wonderfully. 
And Stilling told Lavater, and has told the world 
in his beautiful autobiography, a great many re- 
markable things done for him by the Lord in answer 
to his faith, not only in the days of his student 
life, but also through all his professional career, 
how He had sustained and delivered him and lifted 



PRECIOUS IN ALL THINGS. 77 

him up. In fact no one can ever be all he might 
be in any line or calling, or in any work or relation 
of life, without the power of God, which comes by 
abiding union with our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Business men frequently turn from the thought 
of living a consecrated life as a thing impossible for 
them. Yet in truth the life of faith is the only 
true life for a man of business to lead. A man of 
large business, who employs a great deal of ma- 
chinery and very many men, was drawn into a 
meeting where he heard testimonies to the pre- 
ciousness of a life of faith from a number of per- 
sons. He was convinced and soon came to know 
for himself the truth of it all, and not only believed 
unto righteousness but confessed unto salvation. 
He was very happy. 

Five or six weeks passed by, and again he was 
in a similar meeting, himself one of the witnesses. 
He spoke of the extent of his business, of its mone- 
tary perplexities, and of the inevitable frictions 
between master and men, and confessed that the 
weight and wear and tear of his affairs had been 
very great, and were becoming more and more dif- 
ficult to be borne until he had come into the exper- 
imental knowledge of the way of faith a few weeks 
before. " But, " said he, u since that, though my 
business is the same, there is a world of difference 
in me. These weeks have been the happiest of my 



78 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

life. I get along with my men charmingly. I am 
not troubled about money as I used to be. In fact 
every thing in my business — which is the Lord's 
— seems to run smoothly, and my life goes now 
like machinery in perfect order, well lubricated. " 

He was right. Faith is an amazing lubricator 
of the wheels of life in every line. 0, if only all 
men could see it ! O that all our over-worked, over- 
burdened business men could learn the wisdom of 
putting themselves and their affairs all into the 
hands of the Lord ! How He would counsel them, 
guide them, sustain them, bless them ! O how He 
would carry them in peace through all their per- 
plexities, and hold them up under all their burdens! 
What sunshine He would shed in and over all ! 
How sweet He would make the bitter ! How rest- 
ful the toil! How peaceful the disappointments! 
How gainful the losses ! And how blissful His own 
smile upon them would be every hour of the day ! 

The time must come, will come, when men will 
learn that to be abiding in Christ is to be happy ; 
and to be out of the abiding is to be out of the 
only true line of happiness for which man was 
created. 



VIII. 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 




MINISTER'S wife heard one day, for the 
first time in her life, of the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost as an experience distinct from 
conversion. It was presented from the scriptural 
standpoint, and illustrated from life. And imme- 
diately she exclaimed in her heart, " By the grace 
of God, it shall be mine." 

This was in a meeting, and she went home to 
work it out. She went to the Bible and to her 
knees, trembling l with fear begotten of hope, for 
God was working in her both to will and to do of 
His good pleasure. That night she unwittingly 
followed the Apostle's exhortation, to fear, 2 lest a 
promise being left of entering into rest, she should 
come short of it, and to labor to enter into that 
rest, lest she should fail through unbelief. She 
strove 3 to enter in at the strait gate, for she saw 
that many were seeking to enter in by the wide 
gate, the common way, which she had so long tried 

1 Philippians ii. 12. 2 Hebrews iv. 1 and 11. 3 Luke xiii. 24. 
(79) 



80 IX THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

in vain, and were not able, but remained as she had 
done year after year, still in unrestful bondage to 
their own infirmities and sins. She was in real 
earnest ; as much so as she had been when she 
sought the Saviour and found Him in the first 
instance. Indeed, in seeking the baptism of the 
Holy Spirit now, it was precisely as it had been 
with her in seeking the baptism of remission of 
sins at that time ; her whole heart was engaged in 
the work. Hovv happened it ? 

The minister himself — her husband — had 
recently come into a new experience of union 
with Jesus that puzzled both him and his wife. 
The puzzle was, whether she was in the same 
experience before him or not. He knew that she 
had been in advance of him ; but whether she was 
in the large place into which he had now come, 
was the question. He rather inclined to believe 
she was, but had made less ado about it than he 
was now doing, because habitually less demonstra- 
tive than he. She knew that since her conversion, 
under the discipline of suffering, and of care 
amongst her numerous little ones, and of work in 
the parish, she had been led into a trustful recog- 
nition of the constant presence and companionship 
of Jesus, by which she had been wonderfully 
cheered and sustained all along ; but was' this 
what had now been found by her husband, or 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 81 

had he bounded suddenly out into light far beyond 
her? 

The subject of the higher life was before the 
community ; meetings in various places had brought 
it up ; the minister had heard of these meetings ; 
one of them had been in a former parish of his, 
and one of his old parishioners had come all the 
way to visit him and tell him the story of the won- 
derful change in herself and in others of his for- 
mer flock : -by these and other influences the Lord 
had pressed him, and taught him, and finally 
brought him out into the fullness of the blessings 
of the gospel. Zealous before, he now could find 
no rest until his present flock, and the neighbor- 
ing ones with their shepherds, should share his 
new found pasture ; and so he had invited meet- 
ings in his own church. All this intensified the 
puzzle in the mind of his wife, and she was won- 
derfully eager to hear. 

In the same meeting were others as eager as she 
to hear and to have ; but there were some there who, 
though as quick to hear, were inclined to take back- 
seats and to hear with different ears. She heard to 
perceive and to grasp, they to reason and reject. 
Her heart asked, Is there any thing for me ? Theirs, 
Is there any flaw to justify one in not seeking any 
thing ? 

Therefore as she listened she exclaimed, " Ah ! 



82 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

yes, that is it. The baptism of the Spirit. God 
coming to dwell in us forever. I have not received 
that. But by the grace of God it shall be mine." 
They meanwhile listened and blocked their own 
way by their own questions ; one asked, " Did not 
this belong exclusively to apostolic times ? " 
another, " Was it not just the gift of special mir- 
aculous powers ? " and another, on the opposite 
extreme, asked, " Do not all Christians, since 
Pentecost, receive the Spirit in conversion ? " 

O, how they missed the mark ! If they had 
just asked, * Do ive need such an experience to set 
us free and endow us for work ? Can we have it V 
the answer would have been. 4 Yes, yes ; ' but they 
asked in heart, ' Can we not theorize it away ? ' and 
the answer was, ' Yes;' and they did so. Now mark 
the result. That night the minister's wife found 
her heart waking and pressing hard after the prom- 
ised baptism of the Spirit. She did not, indeed, 
see that by accepting the promise she would 
surely receive the promised Comforter, so she 
wrestled when she might have rested ; but the 
Lord soon taught her. For some time before this, 
she had been specially interested in repeating the 
Lord's prayer while about her work. So when 
she rose next morning and went about her house- 
hold affairs, she took it up again as usual ; and that 
morning, somehow, the petitions, " Thy kingdom 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 83 

come, 4 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' 5 
had altogether a new meaning to her as to the place 
of the kingdom in her own heart — -and as to the 
time when His will should be done — now. These 
things came out with amazing clearness and force 
to her. There she was, about her house, broom 
in hand ; and there the Lord was, in His house, 
sweeping away the cobwebs and dust of ignorance 
and unbelief from her heart to make room for His 
kingdom ; so when she came to the petitions, u Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," 
it was a real prayer for present and entire deliver- 
ance from heart evil. Passing from these to the 
ascriptions following, put in the form of reasons 
justifying what had been asked : " For Thine is 
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," she 
perceived that the kingship of Christ was a present 
spiritual inner one, and the power by which He 
sets up His kingdom is that of the Spirit given 
unto us to dwell in us and work in us to will and 
to do the will of God. When she came to the 
" Amen," — so let it be, — O, what a ringing one it 
was in her heart! Her whole soul responded, " So 
let it be, dear Lord, Thou art my king within, 
Thine is the kingdom, Thine the power, Thine be 
the glory, amen." 

Wonderful was her deliverance ; great her joy ; 

4 Matthew vi. 10. 



Si IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the new King ruled well His kingdom, cast out 
all His and her enemies, and filled every province 
of her soul with His own peace-giving sway. 

When next she went into the meeting, she was 
as eager to hear as ever, but with another feeling 
altogether. Now she understood the matter ; it 
was all true, all her own; the puzzle was solved 
and she was able herself to give in a testimony as 
unequivocal and as ringing as her husband. And 
there sat the rejectors, just where they were before, 
not one inch ahead, still out at sea, still befogged 
in their own questionings, ringing fog bells, blow- 
ing fog whistles, rolling on the waves, blowing off 
steam, but making no progress. 

But now as to their questions, is there any thing 
in them all which of right should block one's way I 
Let us see. One thing is certain, they cannot all 
be well founded ; for if it be true that the baptism 
of the Spirit was given only in apostolic times, 
then it cannot be true that it is given to all Chris- 
tians since, in their conversion. If one is true, the 
other is not ; but let us see whether either is true. 
First, Was the baptism of the Spirit for the apos- 
tolic day alone ? Let the Apostlej themselves 
answer. Let Peter be their spokesman. Oils the 
day of Pentecost, 5 after the baptism of the one 
hundred and twenty in the upper chamber had 

5 Acts ii. 1-14. 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 85 

been noised abroad, and a multitude had gathered 
in the temple, hearing and seeing the wonderful 
intoxication caused by this new wine of the king- 
dom, Peter stands up amidst all his fellow apostles 
and proclaims to the multitude that this baptism is 
in fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel, that "It 6 
shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, 
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" 

If any one questions whether ' the last days ' here 
means the last dispensation, and whether ' all flesh' 
means all men, the apostle does not leave these 
things in doubt ; for when those convinced cry out, 
e What 7 must we do ? ' he answers, ' Repent, and be 
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ ; for the remission of sins, (first) and (then) 
ye shall receive the gift (baptism) of the Holy 
Ghost (as we have done); for the promise is unto 
you, and to your children, and to all that are 
afar off, (in place or time,) even as many as the 
Lord, our God, shall call' 

Thus on the very day of its first fulfillment, the 
apostle settles it forever, that the promise, what- 
ever it is, is for all the children of God who accept 
the call. 

But what was it ? Was it the gift of certain 
miraculous powers, — called by the apostles gifts of 
the Spirit, tongues, prophecy, healing and the like ? 
6 Acts ii. 16, 17. 7 Ibid. 37-30. 



86 IX THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Or was it another greater, more glorious gift 
altogether than these, — the gift of the Holy* 
Spirit as a person to us, to dwell with us and 
within us Himself forever ? 

Let our Lord and Saviour, and His apostles, 
answer. Just before His arrest for trial and cru- 
cifixion, our Lord, in His conversation with the 
apostles the night He instituted the Supper, told 
them, and all 8 who through their word believe on 
His name, that He 9 would give them, — or that the 
Father would give them in His name, — another 
Comforter, (besides 10 Himself and the Father, who 
would both come to them and manifest Themselves 
to them,) the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Ghost, 
w T ho was with 11 them and should be in them, and 
who should abide with them forever. A very dis- 
tinct promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit Him- 
self; not of special gifts from Him. 

And what did our Lord say the Spirit would 
do ? Confer special miraculous gifts as His sole 
office work ? No ; but that He would teach 12 
them all things, lead 13 them, guide 14 them into all 
truth, and bring 15 all things taught by Him into 
remembrance, glorify 16 Him, (Christ,) take of the 
things that were His and show unto them, and 17 

s John xvii. 20. » Ibid. 16, 17. 15 John xiv. 26. 

9 Ibid. xiv. 16, 17, 26. 12 Ibid. 26. 16 Ibid. xvi. 14. 

10 Ibid. xiv. 18, 19, 23. 13 Rom. viii. 1. 17 Ibid. xv. 26. 
14 John xvi. 13. 



IT SHALL BE MINE, 87 

testify of Him. To which the Apostle Paul adds, 
amongst other things, that He will 18 strengthen 
those in whom He dwells, with might in the inner 
man, that Christ may dwell in them by faith, that 
being rooted and grounded in love (Christ's love) 
they may be able with all saints to comprehend 
what is the length and breadth, depth and height, 
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge, that they may be filled with all the 
fullness of God. 

Here are blessed offices of the Spirit, as Teacher, 
Guide, Leader, Remembrancer, Glorifier of Christ, 
Witness for the Son of God, and Strengthener of 
the Saints. Yet in all this, not one word about 
special miraculous gifts. 

When our Lord was about to ascend from Oli- 
vet, He renewed His 19 promise of the Spirit, to His 
apostles, — definitely, as the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost ; and 20 told them that they should receive 
power in receiving Him, and should be witnesses 
for Him, — the Saviour, — a definite promise of the 
Spirit, as a person, without allusion to special 
gifts. 

In fact, we hear next to nothing of special mi- 
raculous gifts until we come to the historical fulfill- 
ment of the promise, when they appear ; but they 
appear simply as extraordinary accessories of the 
18 Ephesians iii. 16-19. 19 Acts i. 5. 20 Ibid. 8. 



88 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

great abiding general endowment received by the 
disciples in the Holy Ghost Himself given unto 
them. They were instantly taught, led, quickened, 
strengthened, reminded, filled with the fullness of 
God, and changed in a moment, as Solomon's 
temple was, when taken possession of by the Lord, 
into consecrated or sanctified temples of God. 

That they spake with other tongues, was not the 
great matter, but only a sign of it. The great 
matter was that the Holy Ghost was in them and 
enabled them to speak with other tongues — with 
any tongue at all — the wonderful 21 works of 
God. 

That they could prophecy, upon occasion, was 
indeed evidence that the Holy Ghost was in them ; 
yet it was a small matter in comparison with the 
grand fact that the Holy Ghost was in them, and 
that by Him they did so speak of the wonderful 
works of God, that a whole city was awakened in 
a few hours, and three 22 thousand converted in a 
day. 

That they could heal in the name of Jesus, — 
some of them, not all, — as a special gift, was 
indeed a blessed thing for the healed ones, and a 
real attestation of the power of God with them, 
but that they all could, by the Holy Ghost dwelling 
in them and working mightily with them, become 
21 Acts ii. 11. 22 Ibid. ii. 41. 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 89 

glad and glorious 23 witnesses for Jesus and win 
almost the whole known world to acknowledge 
Him as the Son of God in a single generation, and 
heal myriads of souls, was immeasurably more 
blessed. 

The logic of all this leads to the inevitable con- 
clusion that the baptism of the Spirit is not a gift 
of miraculous powers conferred upon a ftw, but 
the gift of the Holy Ghost Himself to us, to dwell 
in us, provided for every child of God who will 
receive Him. 

And now last of all, do all who become Chris- 
tians receive the baptism of the Spirit in their 
conversion ? 

It is certain that some have not done so. All 
who were converted before Pentecost, for example; 
and the Samaritans converted a4 after Pentecost, 
under the preaching of Philip, for whom Peter and 
John prayed afterwards effectually, that they might 
receive the Holy Ghost. Conversion, therefore, 
and the baptism of the Spiiit are separate and 
distinct experiences, though they may, and ought 
to come, very near together. 

It is equally certain that if we put side by side 
the present state of the mass of Christians and the 
state they would be in if they had received the 
Spirit as an indwelling one, leading them, teaching 

23 John xv. 27 ; Actsi. 8. 24 Acts viii. 5, 11, 17. 



90 IN TEE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

them, strengthening them, unfolding Christ to 
them, filling them with all the fullness of God, 
making them glad witnesses for Jesus, and attend- 
ing their testimony with power that could not 
be gainsaid or resisted ; the parallel will prove 
a contrast with its irresistible conclusion that most 
Christians have not received the baptism of the 
Spirit in their conversion. 

Does not the question spring from want of dis- 
tinction between two great classes of the Spirit's 
various office-work for us ; in one of which He 
may be truly said to be with us, and in the other, 
in us ? 

Our Saviour makes this distinction in connection 
with the promise of the Spirit as an indwelling 
one, Who 25 is with you, and shall be in you ; these 
are His words. The Spirit is with us to convince 
before we are converted, and to regenerate us in 
the new birth ; and He is with us to work in us 
every thing that is of God afterwards. But this 
is entirely a different thing from His 26 coming in to 
possess us fully for God as His temple, purify 27 us 
to God as His peculiar purchased possession by 28 
the blood of the Son of God, fill 29 us with all the 
fullness of God, keep 30 us by the power of God, 
use us for the glory of God, attend us by the 

^John xiv. 17. 27 Titus ii. 14. 29 Ephesians lii. 19. 

26 Acts ii. 4. - 2 * 1 John i. 7. 30 1 Peter i. 5. 



IT SHALL BE MINE. 91 

might of God, and 31 preserve us blameless unto the 
coming of Christ. 

The true question for every child of God is, not 
whether all who become Christians do receive the 
baptism of the Spirit in conversion, but c Have I 
received it at all, either then or since ? ' and the true 
conclusion would be that of the minister's wife, — 
if they have not, " By the grace of God it shall be 
mine." 

31 l,TheSo v. 23, 24. 













IX. 

PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 

YOUNG woman whom I know as worthy 
of all confidence, savs that at a certain 
time she was favored with a remarkable 
inletting into the knowledge of God, by something 
not unlike that which happened to the man 1 whom 
Paul knew, who was caught up, whether in the 
body or out of the body he knew not, into the third 
heaven and saw things unutterable. Still less 
unlike, perhaps, the frequent scenes in the life of 
Miss Pierrepont, afterward Mrs. Edwards. 

There is nothing w T onderful about this young 
woman except what God has wrought in her by 
His Spirit. I speak of this because we are so apt 
to think that the precious things of God are above 
us. While, in truth, our Father has no favoritism 2 
in His family, it does seem good to Him to reveal 
the secrets of the household to the babes, 3 the little 
ones, to the lowly ones, however old or young in 
years, or high or low in knowledge, or rich or 

1 2 Cor. xii. 3,4. 2 Acts x. 34. 3 Mat. xi. 25, 26. 
(92) 



PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 93 

poor in this world's goods. Christ, the fullness 
of the God-head, the express image of the Father, 
is the meek and lowly one, and is called His Holy 4 
Child Jesus. 

It was a little' child, not a sage, that our Lord 5 
set up amongst His followers as an example of 
what they must become to be great in His king- 
dom. The Lord came to the little boy Samuel 6 
in the days of Eli, and began with him in his child- 
hood a life-long intimacy, which made every word 
of his lips and every act of his life faithful to God. 
Daniel 7 was but a youth, though he was of the 
seed royal, — the Lord does not despise royal blood 
in a lowly heart, — when God revealed to him the 
secrets of His counsel which made him wiser than 
all the wise men of Babylon, and set him on high 
among the princes of the court wherein he was a 
captive. Joseph 8 was only a lad, his father's 
errand boy, when the Lord began to talk with him 
and tell him His purposes and plans in dreams of 
the night. And David was a shepherd boy when 
the Lord took him 9 from the. sheep-cote, from fol- 
lowing the sheep, to make him the Prince of sweet 
singers and the King of Israel. 

It is a sad mistake for any one to turn away 
from anything offered in the promises, however 

4 Acts iv. 27. e i Saml.iii. 1-10. s Genesis xxxii. 2. 

5 Mat. xviii. 1-4. 7 Daniel i. 3, 4, 17. 9 2 Samuel vii. 8. 



94: IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

great and high it may seem, saying " this is too 
high for me. 5 ' Though God is the High and the 
Holy One, the way He manifests Himself is so 
simple that only the lowly ones can see Him. 

This young woman had been for sometime 
desiring more and more deeply to know more of 
God. She did know Him. She had acquainted 
herself with Him, and was at peace. She knew, 
too, the sweet significance of the name 10 Jesus, as 
that of her own present personal Saviour from sin. 
Yet she was not perfectly satisfied. Her heart 
yearned for deeper knowledge of God. She says, 
" From day to day, my desire after God grew, until 
at last He sweetly unfolded Himself to me, and 
filled and satisfied me perfectly with Himself. 
Shall I tell you when He was found of me ? Just 
when He said He would be, when 11 I sought Him 
with all my heart." The Lord suddenly 12 came 
to His temple. So He often comes. As the light- 
ning shines out from under one part 13 of the heav- 
ens, flashing its light through another part, so He 
came to her, and covered 14 His tabernacle with 
the cloud of His glory, and filled it with the She- 
kinah of His presence. Her bodily strength was 
gone in a moment, but her spiritual strength was 
renewed like the eagle's, and she was lifted as upon 

10 Mat. i. 21. 12 Malachi iii. 1. 14 Exodus xl. 34. 

11 Jeremiah xxix. 13. 13 Mat. xxiv. 27. 



PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 95 

cherubic wings, above the world. Consciousness 
of all said and done around her remained, but she 
could not speak a word, or move a muscle. The 
knowledge of God by perception, without a word 
or an effort, flooded her, and absorbed her whole 
being. 

The grand showings of the hour to her, were 
these two : on the one side God's perfect fitness to 
her, and on the other her perfect fitness to Him. 
She saw that God as a Being, was exactly suited 
to every part of her being, to her mind and heart, 
and will. 

He showed her, also, that, suited perfectly as 
He was to her, so perfectly her being was suited 
to His, and that she must be in Him, and live in 
Him. His thoughts must be her thoughts. His 
loves her loves, and His will her will. He showed 
• her this under the symbolism of a bough in the 
breeze. She saw that she must be like the most 
delicate bough, moving with the gentlest motions 
of the air, which way soever it might be. 

This showing was not unlike to that made to 
Ezekiel, 15 in the vision of the wheels, which moved 
as the Spirit moved, and stopped when the Spirit 
stopped, and very like that to the beloved Apostle 
in Patmos, of those in heaven who went whither- 
soever 16 the Lamb did lead them. Beloved, I 

15 Ezekiel i. 20. 16 Rev. xiv. 4. 



96 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

speak of these things, not to put you upon a 
stretch for visions and revelations. These are 
very wonderful and instructive, but, in the nature 
of the case, cannot be permanent. Paul could not 
remain in the third heavens, absorbed in unutter- 
able things, but must come back amongst men, to 
dwell in things utterable, and utter them for the 
glory of God and salvation of men. But, beloved, 
there is a wonderfully precious lesson taught by 
them: it is the perfect fitness hetiveen God's 
being and ours — yours, mine, and each and every 
other one of God's dear children. 

Suppose you and I should each be lifted up 
to-day, into God, as this young woman was, and 
should see God in His suitableness to us, as she 
saw Him in His suitableness to her, would it not 
be as perfect in our case as in hers ? However 
unlike we may be — I am peculiar, so you may be 
also — yet would not the suitableness be perfect in 
each case? And would it not be the same with 
every one, if each of all the children of God 
should be so lifted up in Him ? Certainly it 
would. 

The sun in the heavens with his clear shining 
light enriching us, enveloping, covering every one, 
filling each and all with his brightness, is not as 
perfectly suited to each, as is God in Christ, the 
Sun of Righteousness/ The air in which we live 



PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 97 

and move, and have our being, fitting us like the 
skin, yea, fitting us within and without, pressing 
upon every part of our bodies and entering into us 
in life-sustaining power through our lungs, form- 
ing the vital flame in every artery, vein and fibre 
of our organism, is not so suited to us as is God 
by His Spirit. 

God does not ordinarily so lift His children up 
into Himself as to take away, even temporarily, 
their strength, and unfit them for the moment for 
life amongst men, but He does a far better thing 
than that for all who seek Him with the whole 
heart ; He comes down to them upon earth amongst 
men, in spirit, and takes up His abode in them, 
.fitting them and filling them perfectly with Him- 
self; suiting His mind, and will, and heart to 
theirs, by fitting theirs to Him. This He does 
not as the vision of an hour, but as a reality that 
shall never end. If God should — if it could be 
so — lift us all up, and keep us forever absorbed in 
ecstatic visions of Himself, it would be a perfect 
and permanent unfitting of every one of us for our 
life on earth, in whatever sphere engaged. But 
by coming down to us and coming in to dwell in 
us, He secures the very opposite result. He fits 
us to fill, and fills by us each, the sphere appointed, 
whatever it may be. There is a double fitting and 
filling secured by it. God fits and fills us with 



98 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

Himself, as our souls fit and fill our bodies, and as 
the light and air fit and fill us, suiting us perfectly, 
flooding us with ocean fullness. And He fits and 
fills by us, every one, the several spheres given us 
to occupy. 

This coming down of God upon men to dwell 
in them and fit and fill them with Himself, to fit 
and fill by them the several spheres designed for 
them, is precisely what took place on the day of 
Pentecost, and in the subsequent days while yet 
the Christian's privilege of being baptized with the 
Holy Ghost was not lost out of mind. 

By this means 17 God gave some to be apostles, 
some evangelists, some prophets, some pastors and 
teachers, for the edifying of the body of Christ, for 
the perfecting of the saints, till they all come in 
the unity of the Spirit to the measure of the stature 
of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. 

It is also exactly what was done, in the measure 
to which they in that day were prepared to receive 
it, in the days of Moses, by which Moses was fitted 
and filled for his special mission as the leader and 
law-giver of his people under God, for his sphere ; 
Aaron, as minister of worship, for his; Joshua, as 
minister of war, for his; and Bezaleel 18 and Aholiab, 
as administrators in artizanship in building the 
tabernacle, in theirs ; and all the under-workers in 
17 Eph. iv. 11-13. WExod. xxxi. 2 ; xxxy. 30-35 ; xxxvi. 1-4. 



PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 99 

spinning, weaving, needle work, and the cunning 
work in gold, silver and brass, were in theirs. This 
is, in truth, the grand design and provision of God 
for His church in the world, by which the full and 
complete unity of the body in its Head and in its 
Spirit, shall be effected, and the perfect fitness and 
efficiency of each and all its members shall be 
secured. 

In the primitive church, these two things were 
more fully secured than ever before or since. 
Apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, 
and people, were all baptized by the one Spirit 
into the one body, and each was filled and fitted 
for the individual work assigned of God, and thus 
a wonderful unity and efficiency were brought 
about 

They were all one in Christ Jesus ; a unit in 
Head ; one in the Spirit, a unit in heart, and will, 
and action. However widely separated one from 
another, and however varied the spheres they filled 
and the work they wrought, there was perfect har- 
mony, for their one Lord dwelt in all and directed 
everything in all, and their one Spirit animated 
and actuated all. 

When the one hundred and twenty became three 
thousand, and five thousand, and thousands of 
thousands, their unity continued as long as the 

church continued in all its members to receive the 

8 



100 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

one baptism of the Spirit into the one body, the 
church, under the one Head, Christ. 

When the one church in Jerusalem came to be 
multiplied by hundreds, — scattered throughout all 
the world where there were Jews converted to 
Christ, — and even when the middle wall of parti- 
tion between Jew and Gentile was fairlv broken 

j 

down, and churches were planted, and converts 
multiplied, throughout the known world, there was 
no permanent distraction or division, until it came 
by the gradual practical abandonment of the privi- 
lege common to all Christians, of receiving the 
Holy Spirit. 

And be assured, beloved, if ever the Church of 
our Lord Jesus Christ is to become a unit again, it 
will be by the practical recognition, the actual 
reception, of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by 
whom, dwelling in its members, it will come 
again fully under the one Lord and Leader, into 
one body, the fullness of Him who filleth all 
in all. 

A minister, who throughout all the years of his 
arduous labors had prayed, preached and planned 
for union, and failed, came one day into an assem- 
bly met to promote the experimental reception 
of the Spirit by Christians of all denominations, 
listened awhile and exclaimed : — " I have found it ! 
I have found it ! This is the true union, and I am 



PERFECTLY SUITED TO ME. 101 

in it! " This is indeed the true union, and there 
is no other that will stand or is worth having. 

This, too, is the only way of securing full and 
abiding individual efficiency.' One who has been 
active beyond most other active lay evangelists, 
said, " I have had, during the last six months, a 
restful fullness of the Spirit, that I never knew 
before, and it seems to me that the Lord has 
enabled me to accomplish more in saving men in 
this six months, than in six years before." The 
Lord's true tabernacle and temple, His habitation 
through the Spirit, was not that in the wilderness, 
nor that on Mount Moriah, but is that on the 
Mount Zion above, a living habitation of living 
souls, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and 
saved and perfected by the Spirit, through the 
instrumentality of those in whom He dwells. 
Therefore, if He fitted, filled and used Bezaleel 
and Aholiab for the cunning work of the taberna- 
cle, which was to perish with the using, how much 
more should He fit and fill those whom He uses 
for the incomparably more delicate work of soul 
saving and soul perfecting, for His imperishable 
house not made with hands. And if it was need- 
ful that He should so fit and fill men for those 
works of art, how much more us who are engaged 
in a work of heavenly wisdom. 

Beloved, is not this, then, the one great want of 



102 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

individual Christians ? The baptism. The bap- 
tism, I say ; not a baptism, but the gift of the 
Holy Ghost as an abiding, guiding, teaching, gird- 
ing, strengthening one ; fitting, and filling, and 
using the recipient in the work to .which He calls 
him, and attending him with power wherever he 
goes, and in whatever he does ? This, nothing else 
but this, will give us to see again the amazing pro- 
gress that attended the spread of the gospel in its 
primitive days. 

One thing is certain, it suits me exactly, and I 
would not live without it for worlds. 








X. 

A GIFT. 



KNOCK at our cabin door announced one, 
who at that time was a comparative stranger 



to us, but who ever since has been a sister 



beloved in the Lord. Her satchel and umbrella 
indicated that she was out for a visit, not for a 
call, and she was not slow to tell what had brought 
her to us. As we greeted and welcomed her, she 
turned to my wife and said: — u You see I have 
come to stay. For some time past I have had no 
rest day or night on account of my sins. I feel 
that I am a Christian. My sins are forgiven. If 
I should die it would be without fear. I knotv 
that my Redeemer liveth. My great trouble is 
the power of sin. I cannot break it ; I have tried 
consecrations, and strugglings, and prayers, and 
trust in the Lord for help, and all in vain. I am 
at my wits' end, and I have come to you to stay 
until I shall be delivered. I know you will not 
turn me away." 

(103) 



104 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

She was gladly welcomed and made at home, of 
course, and all things except the indispensables 
weie joyously put aside, that by any means she 
might have her eyes opened to see Jesus and accept 
Him as her Saviour from sin. Twenty-four hours 
passed, and still she was struggling on. Forty- 
eight hours brought no release. Dinner time came 
on the third day, and my wife went out into the 
lean-to kitchen at the back of the cabin to prepare 
our repast, and when it was ready came in to sum- 
mon us out to the table. I rose, but our guest sat 
still. Her head was bowed down, her face in her 
hands and her hands in her lap, and she paid no 
attention to the call. After a few moments it was 
repeated ; still she sat unmoved. A third time 
she was invited, this time by name, but remained 
still as a statue. At last, just as I was starting to 
lay my hand on her shoulder and shake her out of 
her reverie, she slowly raised her head, and began 
speaking like one in a fit of abstraction, saying: 
" His unspeakable gift. — A gift. — Yes, a gift. — 
Why, I can accept a gift. 9 ' 

As these words fell from her lips, the calm of a 
heavenly peace came upon all her features, followed 
quickly by the glow of inexpressible gladness. Her 
struggle was ended. The great secret was learned. 
The gift was accepted. Her whole being was given 
up a living, willing, joyous offering to God. 



A GIFT. 105 

A gift ; yes, a gift. The unspeakable gift of 
God. Any one can accept a gift. The least of 
us all can accept the greatest of all gifts — God's 
gift of Himself. God has given Himself to us — 
all He is and all He has. To have Him in all His 
fullness, and with Him all things, we have only to 
accept Him as a gift. 

I say reverently, that God could not help giving 
Himself to us, for He is love. Whole-hearted 
love cannot withhold itself, nor anything it has or 
anything it can do, from the object upon which it 
is placed. The greatest heart-ache possible to one 
who loves another with all his heart, comes if he 
be prevented from giving himself to the one he 
loves. Hearts innumerable have been broken by 
thwarted love. Reason has often been dethroned 
by it. God is love ; not to have given Himself to 
us — I repeat, that in all reverence it is said — 
would have been an infinite and eternal heart-ache. 
To give Himself to us is a boundless, endless joy. 

God is love. Love has ruled in the manner of 
the gift. Reason might have been satisfied with 
the gift of Himself to us in His works, or at most, 
in His Word. That is, in a revelation of Himself 
as given to us, by a simple declaration of the fact 
to us in language. Not so love. Love must 
express itself so as not to be misunderstood. Love 
must embody itself in a form to be fully appre- 



106 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

hended. God is love, and therefore took upon 
Himself our own form, and gave Himself to us in 
such a way that we could see Him and know Him, 
as we can see and know one another ; and gave 
Himself for us, a ransom to redeem us unto Him- 
self, for He so loved us that He could not help it ; 
not because we were lovely, but because He is 
love. 

Even so love was not satisfied. Love never can 
be satisfied until the object upon whom it is placed 
has been rescued, if in peril, and lifted to the high- 
est bliss and dignity it has power to bestow. God 
is love, and could not be satisfied with revealing 
Himself in person in our nature and giving Him- 
self a ransom for us on the cross. He must give 
Himself to us, impart Himself to us, take posses- 
sion of us and give us possession of Him. Nothing 
short of this could satisfy God, for He is love. To 
satisfy Himself, He has given Himself to us in 
Spirit, and comes to us to impart Himself to us and 
to dwell in us forever. Love draws together and 
makes one of the twain husband and wife, if it be 
genuine and mutual. Thenceforth they two are 
no more twain, but one flesh ; truly so, and in 
their children their blended unity is seen. God's 
love has craved and devised a unity between Him- 
self and us, more perfect and complete than is 
possible between husband and wife. He has given 



A GIFT. 107 

Himself to us, to come by His Spirit into our spirit 
and dwell in us. Husband and wife may be sepa- 
rated by space, but God and His loved ones in 
whom He dwells, may be one and inseparable in 
all times and places — God in them, and they in 
God — and the communion between them may be 
as much easier, clearer, sweeter, dearer, as the 
communion of thought and affection is closer than 
that of words. Spirit in spirit ; God in spirit, in 
our spirit, witnessing His presence and love by 
such communion as only spirit with spirit, love 
with love, can know. 

O how wonderful the ways of love! O how 
wonderful this three-fold gift. God's gift of Him- 
self to us ! How simple ! How beautiful ! Well 
might the celebrated Genevan put it all in each — 
the Father, Son and Spirit. 

" All from the Father. 
All in the Son. 
All by the Spirit." 

The Father gives Himself to us as manifested in 
the Son. The Son comes to us by the Spirit, and 
manifests Himself and His Father in Him in our 
hearts. The Spirit, given by the Son from the 
Father, comes in all the fullness of the Godhead — 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost — to abide in us and 
unite us to God by an actual inner union, than 



108 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

which no other union imaginable can be more 
perfect. 

a A gift. Yes, a gift ; the unspeakable gift of 
God. 1 can accept a gift." The least of us all can 
accept this greatest of all giftc. 

The Apostle Peter tells us how, and the way is 
very simple. In his answer on the day of Pente- 
cost to those pricked in heart by his previous words, 
he said : — " Repent, every one of you, and bo bap- 
tized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the 
remission of sins, and ve shall receive the rnffc of 
the Holy Ghost." They had seen and heard that 
day, in the hundred and twenty who had that 
morning received the gift, such demonstrations as 
filled them with wonder, and led them to ask what 
it meant, and what it was. 

Peter had explained that it was the gift of the 
Holy Spirit as promised by the prophet Joel, shed 
forth by our Lord Jesus Christ, whom they had 
crucified, but who was alive from the dead and 
enthroned in power. This explanation brought 
home to them two things : their guilt in killing the 
Prince of Life, their own Messiah, and the amaz- 
ing fact that through Him whom they had killed, 
God was fulfilling His great promise of coming in 
Spirit to tabernacle with men and fill them with His 
fullness. Then they cried out : — ' Men, brethren, 
what must we do? What must we do to be free 



A GIFT. 100 

from our awful guilt ? What must we do to 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ? ' The answer 
of Peter was full, clear, simple, ample to meet the 
question in both respects. In substance it was: 
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and confess 
your faith in Ilim before men, and ye shall 
receive both the remission of your sins and 
the gift of the Holy Ghost ; for the promise is 
unto you and to your children, and to all that are alar 
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 

The three thousand who gladly received this 
word that day, exemplified for us the way clearly. 
They believed in Jesus on the strength of the 
promise, without waiting for feeling, for evidence, 
for experience, for the gift of the Spirit, for any- 
thing whatever, and went forward at once to the 
open confession of their own guilt and of their faith 
in Jesus, and they received the gift according to 
the promise. The pledge of the gift is in the 
promise. The promise must first be accepted as 
true and rested in, or the pledge it contains cannot 
be fulfilled. When the promise is believed, one 
must act on his faith without feeling or anything 
else, and confess his faith in the Saviour on His 
promise, without anything more, and thus accept 
the gift. To believe the promise, is to accept the 
gift ; but there is no true faith in the promise 
unless one stands confessed to himself as resting 



110 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

upon it, and is ready to confess and glad to confess 
to others, that he is resting upon it. 

All is the gift of God in Christ. 
All is in the Promise. 
All is accepted by Faith. 

The mistake of seeking to obtain the gift, instead 
of simply accepting it by faith, is one which keeps 
multitudes from receiving it. 

A woman had found her completeness in Christ 
by accepting all as in Him on the strength of the 
promise, and it made her spirit so sweet, her life so 
peaceful, and shed such a gladness over her house- 
hold, that her husband, who had been skeptical 
about salvation from sin in this life, became deeply 
affected and thoroughly convinced of his error. 
He held his peace as long as he could ; when he 
could hold it no longer he asked his wife, saying : 
" My dear, tell me, how did you obtain this bless- 
ing that has so changed you ? " Her answer was : 
"I did not obtain it at all. It is a gift. I just 
believed in Jesus, and He gave it to me." 

The Holy Ghost is God's crowning gift of Him- 
self to us. Let no one, however, mistake the fruits 
or gifts of the Spirit, for the Spirit, and look for 
His gifts instead of accepting Him. The fruits 
will follow ; but if they are sought, and expected, 
and exacted, as if they were the Spirit Himself 



A GIFT. Ill 

disappointment is inevitable. And the Spirit is 
received by faith in Jesus, who is the baptizer or 
giver from the Father. Christ Himself must be 
accepted and rested in, on the strength of the 
promise. Christ Himself, not peace, love, j'^y; 
not emotions or feelings of any kind. Christ, with- 
out feeling ; and by Him as from Him, certain to 
be given, the Holy Ghost must be accepted with- 
out feeling or evidence of any kind except simply 
the word of promise. The Holy Ghost is not feel- 
ing, nor peace, nor joy, nor emotion of any kind. 
His gifts are peace, love, joy, and every true and 
heavenly grace, but He is Spirit, and you cannot 
feel spirit any more than you can see spirit. He 
may dwell in you by faith, without a particle of 
feeling, as truly as He does when by His work in 
you lie fills you with emotions unutterable. 

A sad mistake is made by those who unwittingly 
confound the gift of the Holy Ghost Himself, as 
promised by our Saviour, with His gifts. They 
seek the gifts of the Spirit instead of the Spirit ; or 
rather, they seek His work instead of accepting 
Him. They seek, strive, agonize, months, years, 
it may be, for the witness of the Spirit, when they 
ought just to believe in Jesus on His word that 
He gives them the Spirit, and so accept the gift. 
The Holy Spirit, accepted by faith in Jesus as His 
gift, will quickly witness for Jesus in the soul, but 



112 IN TEE FOWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

they, not seeing the difference, seek the witness 
when they ought to accept the Witnesser, and co 
fail of the witness by not receiving the Witnesser. 
Another mistake no less sad, is sometimes made 
from the same cause. One who seeks the witness 
instead of accepting by faith the Witnesser, may, 
to save him from becoming completely disheart- 
ened, have given him an inletting into the grace 
of God which fills him with blessedness, and he 
sets it down that this is the Blessed One that he 
has now obtained. It is what he has been seeking 
as the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and so he thinks 
that at last he has found it in very deed. Soon, 
however, his blessedness begins to fade, and shortly 
is gone ; and now, as he confounds the blessedness 
with the Blessed One, he sets it down that he has 
had the baptism of the Holy Ghost and has lost it 
again. Then he begins anew his weary seeking 
for the lost blessing. O how unutterably sad this 
mistake ! O why could he not distinguish between 
the Blessed One Himself and the blessedness Ke 
imparts ! If he would only believe in Jesus and 
in the gift by Him of the Blessed One as ever with 
him, feeling or no feeling, then, if the blessed- 
ness came, it would be welcome indeed, and if it 
faded away, it would not take away the Blessed 
One. He would still remain forever, and would 
quickly and easily give again the blessedness. 



XL 



THE GIFT RECEIVED. 




?HE gift of God is God's gift of Himself. 
Embodied in His dear Son, Christ Jesus, 
fc^vT^S He has given Himself to us in full mani- 
festation, and given Himself for us as a ransom for 
our sins, to redeem us to Himself and for Himself. 
As a quickening Spirit to convince, convert, and 
purify us unto Himself, a peculiar, a treasured peo- 
ple, zealous of good works, He has given Himself 
to us in the Holy Ghost, to possess us fully by His 
own indwelling presence, working in us to will 
and to do of His own good pleasure, that we may 
work out the salvation we have in Him. 

Salvation, in all its parts, is the gift of God in 
Himself, as given unto us in Christ Jesus, aud 
possessed by us in the Holy Spirit, who takes pos- 
session of us. 

God's gift of Himself to us, is by promise, in 
the Word. He has made Himself over to us, as it 
were, by a deed of gift, or by a will and testament, 
(113) 



114 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

to which He has affixed His name and set His seal, 
and then placed it upon record for us. No title- 
deed could be more perfect and final. No will and 
testament could be more sure and settled. The gift 
is made and recorded, and ready. It is all-inclusive, 
unreserved, and complete. All God is, and all He 
has, is made over to us absolutely and uncondition- 
ally. And in Him we have all His gifts, wisdom, 
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. All 
in Christ from the Father by the Spirit. 

Although the gift is absolute and unconditional, 
made over to us by deed and by will placed upon 
record, yet it is impossible for us to possess it with- 
out taking it. It is a gift to be taken, not a some- 
thing which attaches itself to us whether we will 
or not. If we take it we have it. If we refuse, 
or neglect to receive it, we no more have it than if 
it had never been given to us. 

Presented to us in word, we can receive God 
as our God only by faith. If we take Him at His 
word, and accept Him as ours, He is ours to all 
intents and purposes. His own word, expressing 
His own will, makes Him ours in all His offices 
and relations to us. 

It is obvious, however, that we will not, cannot 
accept Him by faith in His word, without turning 
to Him with all our heart. We must turn from 
the world as our portion, or we cannot take God 



THE GIFT RECEIVED. 115 

as our portion. We must turn from, our own 
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemp- 
tion, to God, and find in Christ, God manifested 
to us, — wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and 
redemption, or we cannot find our all in Him. 
And this turning to God is repentance. It is the 
publican's cry, ' God be merciful to me a sinner.' 
It is the prodigal's mind made up to return, saying, 
' Father, I have sinned against God and before 
thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, 
make me as thy hired servant,' and the prodigal's 
return. And only so returning can the prodigal's 
acceptance of the ring, and the shoes, and the robe, 
and the feast, and the gladness, become ours. 
The tabernacle of Moses must be left for God by 
all human feet, and released to God from all human 
hands, even those of Moses, God's ruler of the 
people, and Aaron, God's High Priest, before the 
Lord Himself can come into it. The temple of 
Solomon must be entire, completed, fitted, fur- 
nished and left, turned over a complete offering 
unto the Lord, or He will not possess it and fill it 
with His presence in glory. 

It is equally obvious that neither this turning to 
the Lord with all our hearts, nor trusting fully in 
Him, one or the other, or both together, constitute 
the actual possession of the Lord. They consti- 
tute the outstretched hand receiving the gift, the 
9 



116 IN THE POWER OB THE SPIRIT. 

open door by which the Lord comes in, the return- 
ing steps by which the prodigal comes home to his 
father's house. Thus turned to, and taken at his 
word, the Lord Himself makes His word good, 
and comes into His tabernacle, His temple, enters 
the open door and sups w^ith us, and we with Him ; 
runs to meet us, falls on our neck, rejoices over 
us, puts the ring, the shoes, the robe, upon us ; 
makes the feast, and makes His household ring 
with His own joy and gladness in receiving us. 

As Christ is the fullness of the God-head in 
bodily manifestation, and as we are complete in 
Him ; as He is fully given unto us in the Word, 
and is ours when accepted by faith ; as we have 
only to accept Him to have Him, and only to have 
Him to have all things ; this matter of salvation is 
wonderfully simplified. The unspeakable gift. of 
God is Christ. Accepting Christ we have God's 
unspeakable gift. Truly, it is so simplified, that 
a child may grasp it. The least of us all may 
take this greatest of all gifts, — the gift of God 
Himself to us in Christ Jesus. 

Let no one, however, mistake, and say to him- 
self, I have accepted Christ, and therefore I am 
possessed of all there is in Him, and have no need 
of any further or deeper experience. Stay, my 
brother. Is Christ really, practically, and experi- 
mentally, made unto you wisdom, righteousness, 



THE GIFT BECEIVED. Ill 

sanctification, and redemption ? Do you find your 
daily wisdom in the daily counsel of Christ ? Do 
you trust Him actually to guide you in every 
step of your journey, and in every work of your 
life ? Do you find in Him your righteousness, 
and does He free you from all condemnation, and 
from every cloud of stain and sin ? Do you find 
in Him your present sanctification ? Are you so 
given up to Him, and so occupied by Him, that 
self and the world have no place in you, and that 
Satan when he comes with his temptations, has 
nothing in you, but is met and rebuked by the 
Lord, to whom you refer him ? Are you redeemed 
and delivered from all fear of death, and from 
all the power of sin. Have you already, by 
faith in Christ your risen Saviour, the fullness 
of resurrection-life, by the power of His presence 
in you as your quickening Spirit ? Is it Christ 
for you to live, but gain to die ? Are you 
saved ? Saved from sin ? Filled with the fullness 
of God ? 

If to these questions, all or any of them, you 
must in all honesty say No ; then, though you 
have Christ, you have not yet experimentally come 
into all there is in Him for you. 

A child may be born to the possession of an 
immense estate, and it may be all his, and yet he 
may not know, or be able to know, a word of it. 



118 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

It may be told him in his infancy a thousand times 
over, and yet he may not take it in at all. 

By and by he comes to know enough to be able 
to comprehend something about great estates, and 
may be told over and over again, that he was born 
heir to an immense estate, the gift of his father, 
who died, leaving it by will to him ; and it may seem 
to him like an idle tale, — a nursery story. He can 
conceive of a great estate, and of its belonging to a 
man, but not to a child like him. At last, however, 
he is convinced of all, and in heart accepts the 
fact, that he is indeed the heir to the estate willed 
to him ; and, henceforth, hope springs up and 
stretches forward to the day when he shall come 
into the actual possession of his property, and be 
no longer under tutors and governors. Time 
passes on, and the day comes, and he takes pos- 
session, and has in his own hands the estate to 
which he was born, in all its length and breadth. 
Now, for the first time, he is prepared fully to feel 
and know his actual ownership, and to begin to 
develop the resources of his estate, and to enjoy 
them and use them for all practical purposes. 

You have been born heir to God, a joint heir 
with Christ, and you may have come to the 
knowledge of the fact, and to the acceptance of it, 
and may have Christ as your own, with a good 
hope of glory, and yet not have Him fully unfolded 



THE GIFT RECEIVED, 119 

to you, filling you with the fullness of God. You 
may have Him as your righteousness, and be 
delivered from condemnation and the fear of hell, 
and still be thinking about, or pressing for, sancti- 
fication as a growth of your own virtues, instead 
of finding it already in Christ Himself. Or you 
may be saying to yourself, I do trust in Christ 
alone ; I do not look for anything apart from 
Christ ; but I know I am not right ; I do want 
the power of the Spirit upon me. 

Beloved, if this be so, it is clear that you have 
not yet accepted what there is in Christ for you. 
You have not by faith accepted your completeness 
in Him, but you are looking for it rather from 
Him. 

Do you not know that the Holy Spirit, if you 
will follow Him wholly, will lead you out of all 
thought of the impartation of power from Him to 
you ? Do you not know that His very sealing 
power and witnessing act in you is that of bringing 
you to the acceptance of Christ as all you want ? 
Satan may try to make you look for Christ and 
something besides, to make you complete. The 
Holy Spirit will lead you to accept Christ as the 
end of all and the fullness of all, and to be satisfied 
with Ilim. 

If an artist had at the expense of great pains, 
labor, time and money, and with exquisite taste 



120 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

and skill, with masterly genius, taken and prepared 
for panoramic exhibition all the historic scenes and 
places of the Bible, and should come to your place 
fully commended and accredited, and issue public 
notices that at a given hour and place he would 
exhibit his panorama, and you should go to see it, 
there are some things you would not do. For one, 
you would not, — if he should announce that he 
would first unfold a comprehensive picture .of Bible 
lands and Bible scenes all crowded into one, (if such 
a thing were possible,) and afterwards would unfold, 
step by step the several grand stages of Bible his- 
tory, dispensation after dispensation, step by step, 
you would not, as soon as the first grand compre- 
hensive picture had been made to pass before you, 
say, " There, I have seen it, I have seen all ; there 
is no more for me." 

Yet is not that just like those who have the 
theory that as all is in Christ, and as in conversion 
they have taken Christ, therefore there is nothing 
more for them to experience ? 

Another thing you would not do. You would 
not be looking at the panorama and asking for the 
panoramist besides. You would know that you 
could not have the panorama except by the good 
offices of the panoramist himself, and you would be 
content to know you had him, and let him remain 
behind the curtain invisible and go on with his 



THE GIFT RECEIVED. 121 

work. You would not thank him to neglect his 
work of unfolding to you and leading you on 
through the wonderful scenes prepared for you, to 
come forth and exhibit himself instead. 

The work of the Holy Spirit is that of unfolding 
the fullness of God in Christ, and of giving Ui 
to find our completeness, our satisfaction, not in 
Himself, but in Jesus. Therefore, when you say, 
"I am trusting in Jesus fully, but I want some- 
thing more; I want the Holy Ghost in power 
upon me, besides," you do not know what you 
say. You are like one who should not be satisfied 
with the panorama, but demand the p moramist. 
Why, beloved, if you have Christ as all and in all, 
— your own glorious Saviour, your wisdom, your 
power, your righteousness, your sanctification, your 
redemption, — you have Him so because you have 
the Holy Ghost. While, on the other hand, if 
you are thinking that you take Christ for all, and 
are yet unsatisfied with Him and wanting some- 
thing besides Christ, you are not taught or led by 
the Spirit in this, and have need to go to Christ 
and give yourself up to Ilim anew and more com- 
pletely, and to accept Him anew and more com- 
pletely, and find in Him your completeness, so 
that you shall be satisfied and want nothing besides 
Him. 




XII. 

HIS BACK TO THE SUN, LOOKING AT HIS OWN 
SHADOW. 




c^NE says, " Oh, now I see! how plain! 
What a dunce not to have seen before ! " 
Another says, " What ! so plain, and I 
not see ! How stupid I am ! " Yes indeed ; stupid 
enough ! yet you need not accuse yourselves as if 
you alone of all people were dunces. Not so. We 
are all just like you. What is the difference be- 
tween you two ? Simply this : that the one has his 
face to the light, and the other to the darkness. 

A New England teacher, — able, cultivated, quick 
and sagacious, — sought the light of life in its full- 
ness, yet the darkness, with an occasional gleam as 
a happy exception, continually thickened upon him. 
At last, in the darkest hour of the night, the light 
dawned upon him. That was a glad and glorious 
sunrise to his soul. Then, like all the rest of us, 
he was filled with astonishment about his own past 
stupidity. He saw how it was, and put it in a 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 123 

word, saying, ei All this while I have been like one 
vnih his back to the sun, looking at his own shadow." 

A Western man, thirty years an infidel, six 
months a believer, three months in eager pursuit of 
fall salvation, came all the way over the mountains, 
from the valley of the Ohio to the city of New 
York, to find the boon he sought. In a meeting, 
the light suddenly broke over him and flooded his 
soul. He was on his knees. The moment he rose 
to his feet he exclaimed, " How wonderful ! three 
months I have been in an ocean of glory with my 
eyes shut." 

Yes, true, and how ? Ah, just as were the eyes 
of the New England teacher closed to Christ by 
being fixed on self. He who looks to Jesus is in 
the light. He who looks at himself remains in 
darkness. All the light of life is in Jesus, none in 
ourselves. Every one of us who truly seeks full 
salvation at any cost, and fails to find it, has in one 
way or other his back to the Saviour and his face 
to self. Every one who faces about comes into the 
light. A true view of the nature of full salvation 
will show this, called by whatever name it may be. 

WHAT IS IT? 

In the dedication of the tabernacle of Moses in 
the wilderness, God has given us a wonderful sym- 
bol of the transaction between Him and ourselves, 



124 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

by which we come into His fullness. When Moses 
had finished both the tabernacle and its iWniUire, 
according to the pattern shown him in the mount, 
the Lord commanded him to set it up and put 
everything in place, and he did so. Then the Lord 
commanded him to put upon Aaron the holy gar- 
ments and anoint him, and take the consecrating oil 
and touch the tabernacle itself and everything in it, 
in token that it was set apart or sanctified to God. 
Then to offer incense, and place the shew bread, 
and light the lights in the holy place, and offer 
burnt offerings on the altar before the door of the 
tabernacle. This done, Moses and Aaron and his 
sons washed their hands and feet at the laver. Then 
the priests all withdrew. Last of all, Moses him- 
self withdrew and set up the outer gate and took 
his hands off. Thus he abandoned it to the Lord. 
There was no human foot in it, no human hand 
upon it. 

Up to this moment all was darkness within in the 
most holy place. There were no windows in it, nor 
any lamp, for it was made to be lighted by the 
Lord Himself. 

Up to this moment the Lord abode in the mount. 
Sinai was His tabernacle. Four thousand feet 
above the plain, amidst darkness and clouds, He 
dwelt. Thunderings and lightnings made the moun- 
tain shake and tremble to its base. 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 125 

At this moment, when Moses abandoned the 
tabernacle to God, with the smoke of its offerings 
ascending from the altar, and its ark sprinkled with 
blood, and turned from it, his face to the Lord in 
the mount, his back to the tabernacle, the pillar 
lifted from the mount and came down upon the 
tabernacle, and covered it with the veiled glory of 
God, and filled it with the unveiled splendors of the 
Shekinah of His presence. 

This was the transaction. Moses set apart the 
. tabernacle, and everything in it, to the Lord, by 
consecration, left it, turned from it to the Lord and 
looked to the Lord Himself to take possession of it, 
and cover it and fill it and dwell in it in His own 
personal presence. This on Moses' part. On the 
part of the Lord, His own incoming and indwelling 
sealed and completed the whole. 

Never was symbol more perfect than this. It 
shows forth exactly the transaction between God 
and ourselves, by which we are set apart to Him, 
and in which He takes abiding possession of us for 
Himself. 

Three questions arise here : first, what did Moses 
do to induce the Lord to come in and upon the 
tabernacle ? 

Nothing. The blood cleansed it for His occu- 
pancy, and the Lord needed no inducement to 
occupy it. Moses simply did what the Lord com- 



126 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

manded him to do, set the tabernacle apart to the 
Lord, offered the offerings, and left it to Him. 
This done, the Lord, of His own free will, came in 
and upon it and there abode. The Lord needs no 
inducement to take entire possession of us. All we 
have to do is to give ourselves wholly up to Him 
and let Him have us without reserve, and He will 
quickly take us as His own. The second question 
is this : What was that which the Lord did to the 
tabernacle ? 

He sanctified it to Himself by His own incoming 
and indwelling presence, a perfect symbol of the 
w T ay He sanctifies us to Himself. 

The third question is this : What w r as the nature 
of the change wrought in the tabernacle ? anything 
in its form, or material, or structure ? 

None whatever. Its form remained the same, 
its structure the same, its material the same. Its 
outer covering of badger skins remained badger 
skins still ; its inner overlaying of gold remained 
gold still, ail between, whether wood, or linen, or 
broidery, or silver, or sheepskin dyed red, remained 
the same as before ; no change was wrought either 
in their inherent nature or relative order. Yet all 
was completely transformed, sanctified, and glorified 
by the glorious use to which the tabernacle as a 
whole, and each particular part, was now put as the 
home of the Lord of glory ; all His own forever ; 
every part human yet divine, earthly yet heavenly. 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 127 

This in visible symbol is precisely the invisible 
change that takes place in the sanctification of man 
to God. No change passes upon the form or struct- 
ure or fibre of the body ; it has simply become the 
temple of the Holy Ghost. No change has come 
upon the texture or essence of the mind ; it has 
simply become the secret place of the Most High. 
No change has been wrought in the constitution of 
the sensibilities ; only now God has made them the 
ark of His covenant, the place of His law and testi- 
mony, the seat of His throne of mercy, overshadowed 
by cherubic wings. No change has taken place in 
the native powers of the will, yet oh how changed 
in its choice ! Self no more, God evermore its 
object, and everything in harmony with God's will. 
The change practically is this : before this transac- 
tion we were trying to make something heavenly 
of ourselves, instead of receiving the Heavenly One 
to dwell in us and be all to us ; while in this trans- 
action we are given wholly up to God tod taken 
possession of by Him, and He becomes to us all in 
all. We have exchanged self for God, and made 
infinite gain by the transaction. 

Between the symbol and the reality there is this 
difference : the incoming into the tabernacle was 
visible ; in us it is spiritual, seen only by faith. 
Moses with his back to the tabernacle, and his face 
to the glory on the mount, saw with his own eyes 



128 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the glory of the Lord descend and rest upon the 
tabernacle and fill it. We see the Lord in His 
word, and take Him at His word, and stand in Him 
on the strength of His word. With Moses it was 
sight, with us it is faith ; he saw and believed, we 
see not, yet believe, and rejoice in the glory of God, 
and He makes His word good. He comes in and 
reveals Himself to us, and fills us with His presence. 
This is the sealing of the Spirit. When we accept 
Jesus as God's offering for us, sufficient to cleanse 
us, and intrust ourselves wholly to the Lord, our 
own consciousness testifies to us that we do so, and 
when He comes in by His Spirit, He witnesses to us 
His presence by the manifestation of Jesus to us in 
His light and love and peace and joy, and in Him 
we are satisfied. Thus the transaction is sealed by 
the Lord. Let us mark well that it is when the 
ark — the heart — is sprinkled with the blood of the 
Lamb, and when the smoke of God's offering, which 
is Christ, is ascending from the altar, 1 that the Lord 
comes in, and the Spirit witnesses His presence. 
Call this sanctification if you will ; it is so ; it is just 
what the Scriptures everywhere represent sanctifica- 

1 The inner chamber was the Holy of Holies, but the altar was 
Holiness of Holinesses, from which the ark itself was cleansed 
by. the blood. See Exodus xl. 10, marginal reading. There is 
no getting to the one but by the other. The way to the Holy 
Place and to the Holy of Holies, is one way, not two ; that is, 
by the altar and the blood. 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 129 

tion to be ; that is, an entire setting apart of our- 
selves to the Lord, and a complete possession of us 
by the Lord ; call it holiness if you will ; it is so : 
it is being wholly devoted to the Lord by our own 
act, and taken by the Lord wholly as His own, 
which is being made holy to the Lord : call it the 
rest of faith if you like ; it is so ; it is resting from 
our own works to make ourselves better, as God did 
from His in creation, and as Moses ceased from his 
works on the tabernacle, and letting God enter in 
to His own rest in us, and give us our rest in Him ; 
call it the higher Christian life if you please ; it is 
so : it is Christ our life in us, higher than the 
mixed life preceding it, the life more abundant ; call 
it the baptism of the Holy Ghost if you choose ; 
Christ Himself called it so : it is the full and abid- 
ing reception of the Holy Ghost by turning ourselves 
entirely over to the Lord and looking to Him alone, 
and accepting from Him. by faith in His promise, the 
gift of the Spirit as coming and abiding in us forever. 
The essential things in this transaction are two, 
as the parties are two ; yet it is one whole, and 
turns finally upon a single pivot, and that pivot is 
the act of turning finally and forever from self to 
Christ. This may take place in any one of many 
ways. Often by some single sentence of Scripture, 
with its emphasis upon some single word. Luther, 
on the Santa Escala in Rome, was turned from self 
9 



130 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

to Christ by the text, " The just shall live by faith," 
with its emphasis on the word live. The text, 
" Only believe,'' with its emphasis on the word only, 
was the pivot in the case of one well known to me. 
" Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save 
His people from their sins," with its force all con- 
centrated in the word He, as revealing it to be the 
province of Jesus to save us from our sins, was the 
pivot in my own case. u Come ye out from among 
them and touch not the unclean thing, and I will 
receive you, saiththe Lord," with its special force in 
the word receive, was the pivot in the case of a 
dear fellow worker of mine, as it has been in many 
other cases known to me personally. The transition 
may be made under different circumstances in differ- 
ent cases. When the temple of Solomon was dedi- 
cated, after the anointing, and the abandonment to 
the Lord, the Levites, as a grand choir, sang that 
wonderful choral, the 138th Psalm with its refrain, 
" O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for 
his mercy endureth forever ; " and as they sang, the 
glory came from the east, gilding the Mount of 
Olives, the very spot afterwards touched as the last 
place upon earth, by the feet of Jesus, and as king 
and priests and people, with backs to the temple, 
and face to the glory, gazed and sang, the Lord 
came in by the eastern gate ; so came the Lord 
amidst the shout of Israel to the temple. So comes 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 131 

He often while the voice of song is uplifted in the 
assembly of His people to souls given up to Him. 
To the tabernacle He came in silence ; so comes He 
often to souls awaiting Him in the silence of night, 
or of the closet or the forest. But however it may 
be, the favored moment of His coming is the restful 
moment when all has been given up to Him, turned 
over and left in His hands, and the back has been 
turned from self and the face to Christ. 

The identity of the change under whatever cir- 
cumstances, by whatever means, and however called, 
is singularly illustrated in 

A pastor's experience. 

He had been greatly interested, but also per- 
plexed for years about the matter. As a Christian, 
he coveted the best things ; as a minister, he longed 
for power. In his own flock were witnesses for 
Jesus as their own complete Saviour. Amongst 
his brethren in the pastorate, were some whom he 
loved making a like confession of Christ. But their 
theories and terms stumbled him. He dared not 
oppose ; he could not accept. 

His attention was by and by turned, in the course 
of his studies, to the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as 
taught in the New Testament. True, he did not 
see in it the experience of which he heard his fellow 

Christians and ministers speak, but he did see 
10 



132 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

plainly in it something like an experience after the 
new birth, and just what he felt to be needed in his 
own soul. A convention was called in a village not 
far from the city of his residence, to promote full 
salvation. He heard of it and went ; and as he 
entered the door, the first words that fell on his ear 
impressed him, oh how profoundly ! The speaker 
was setting forth the baptism of the Holy Ghost as 
the most distinctive form in which the experience of 
full salvation is taught and exemplified in the New 
Testament. Instantly the truth flashed upon him, 
that the experience which had so perplexed him in 
years gone by, was indeed the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost. His heart responded, " Yes, Lord, that is 
it ; I see it now ; it is all scriptural and true ; and 
by the grace of God it shall be mine." This coin- 
cidence was of the Lord, and he saw that too ; 
another thing was also prepared by the Lord for 
hire. One of the best men of his own beloved flock 
rose immediately, and gave in his hearty adhesion to 
the teachings he had just heard, and said that he 
felt it to be of unspeakable importance that the 
churches should receive the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost, and closed by saying how hungry the people 
were to have this matter set before them from the 
pulpit. 

This brought the pastor to his feet with a plea of 
guilty. Pointing to the member of his own church 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN. 133 

just seated, he said, " There is the proof of my fail- 
ure. That is one of those under my pastoral care. 
He tells you how hungry the people are to hear this 
truth in the churches. This convicts me/' Then, 
after frankly stating his past interest and perplex- 
ity, and how he had been led to study the baptism 
of the Holy Ghost, and how that very morning, for 
the first time in that assembly, he had come to have 
his perplexities all solved, he declared his determi- 
nation never to rest until he should be fully and 
permanently endowed by the Spirit, and begged all 
present to pray for him. 

Before the convention closed, he arranged for 
the call of a similar one in his own city to meet in 
his own church. The time came ; convened on 
Thursday, it was to close Sunday night. Thurs- 
day and Friday passed and Saturday also, until the 
evening session, and he had not received the fulfill- 
ment of the promise. Other ministers and many 
Christians were already rejoicing in the fullness of 
the new-found blessing, but he had been so occu- 
pied with the hospitalities of the occasion and in 
taking notes for the press, that the time had slipped 
away and was gone, and his hope was not realized. 
As he entered the church Saturday night, these 
facts came to his mind with great force, and he 
began to question whether this blessed opportunity 
would not be finally lost by him. He had conse- 



134 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

crated himself in mind and will and heart. He had 
accepted the offering on the altar as his, and the 
blood as all-cleansing. In that moment he gave 
up all hope of doing anything more himself, for 
already he had done everything he could think of, 
and so he' gave the whole matter over into the 
Lord's hands and there left it forever, and in that 
moment of despair, to his utter amazement, the great 
light rose in his heart. An hour afterward he 
seized a favorable moment and told his story, oh, 
how sweetly, how clearly, how simply ; and after 
stating the facts he said that in that moment of 
despair, as he was taking his seat, having aban- 
doned all to the Lord, and left it forever, the Lord 
suddenly came to him, and His train filled the tem- 
ple. So beautifully was the symbol realized in his 
case, and he was made the temple of God. 

The question is often asked, concerning this ex- 
perience, 

WHY, AMONG EARNEST CHRISTIANS SO FEW COME 
INTO IT ? 

The reason undoubtedly is that so many have 
unwittingly adopted a false aim. They seek an 
increase of their own virtues instead. of the incom- 
ing and indwelling of the Lord in them. They fail 
to see that the Scriptures set forth the reception of 
Christ, not an increase of their own virtues, as the 



HIS BACK TO THE SUN 135 

great end to be gained. If they aimed to receive 
Jesus instead of improving themselves, they would 
quickly come into the experience, but while they 
seek self-improvement as their sanctification, instead 
of Christ, they will never come into the experience. 
What they need is self-abandonment, not self-im- 
provement ; for by this alone can they make the 
glorious exchange of self for Christ. 

Their misapprehension is twofold : they mistake 
self-improvement for both sanctification and growth 
in grace, while it is neither the one nor the other. 
Sanctification, what is it ? It is self given over to 
Christ, and Christ received as all in all. Growth 
in grace, what is that ? It is growth in God's love 
to us unworthy ones. Grace is God's love for us, 
not our virtue. The more we know of His bound- 
less love to us, and of our own un worthiness, the 
more we grow in grace, and in this the Holy Ghost 
leads us as soon as we receive Him and are given 
up to His guidance. This is precisely the opposite 
of growth in a sense of our own virtues. He who 
is looking for the increase of his own virtues, is 
looking at himself, not Christ ; and is standing with 
his back to the sun, looking into his own shadow to 
see it improve. Therefore it is that they who aim 
at sanctification as an increase of their own virtues 
fail of full salvation, which is another thing entirely. 
And this accounts for the fact that so many really 



136 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

earnest Christians fail of the experimental accept- 
ance of the Lord in His fullness. 

Another question is asked by many who have 
given up the idea of growth into sanctification, but 
have not received Christ in His fullness, that is 

WHY DO I FAIL OF THE EXPERIENCE ? 

The answer is easy. The cause will be found in 
one of two things ; either you have not touched the 
tabernacle and all its furniture with the consecrating 
oil, as henceforth the Lord's, and accepted Christ 
as your one all-sufficient offering, or you have not 
finally abandoned all to Him and faced about from 
self to Christ. You are either still at work upon 
yourself, trying to get yourself all right before giv- 
ing yourself to the Lord, or if you have ceased from 
your own works your hand is not taken off, and 
your face is not turned away to Jesus. So long as 
your thoughts centre in yourself in any way, instead 
of leaving yourself in the hands of Christ and letting 
yourself alone, your face is still to your shadow and 
your back to the Saviour. Then face about at once, 
leave yourself with Jesus, and let yourself alone ; 
take Him as your Deliverer and Keeper, and you 
will not fail. 




XIII. 



BOTH SIDES ; OR, THE KEY SURRENDERED. 



g||^N English merchant came to America on 
IJI business. Whatever benefits he gained or 
conferred while here, commercially, they 
were not the greatest ; he received and gave in 
imperishable treasures incomparably more. Oh 
blessed commerce ! May it increase a thousand 
fold between our two nations ! Yes, and between 
all nations. It would add to the wealth of the 
world more than all the gold mines of California, 
Australia, and Africa ; yes, more than all the 
cotton-fields and cotton-mills of the w 7 orld, and 
would bind all nations together in the precious 
bonds of an endless peace. 

The last words of the merchant to me still ring 
in my heart. lie was about to sail for home. We 
met for the first time seven or eight days before, 
and now we stood like David and Jonathan with 
souls knit together as one : so quickly and so deeply 
does the love of Jesus bring the unity of His fol- 



138 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

lowers when they are let into its fullness. Happy 
day it will be when by such an inletting into His 
love all His dear disciples shall be so united in one ! 
Then will His own prayer be answered : " That they 
may be one as We are one ; Thou, Father, in Me, 
and I in Thee, that they may be one in Us, that 
the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and 
that Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." 
Wonderful love ! Wonderful unity ! Wonderful 
result ! 

As we were parting, I said, " Farewell. God bless 
you. He is with you, and will keep you." He re- 
sponded, " Yes, and you." iVnd then in tones sat- 
urated with tearful tenderness he added, " Never 
fail to present both sides." 

I understood him perfectly. He had failed 
through long years to apprehend the giving side, 
and so to gain the full benefits of the receiving 
side. And I am sure he felt that I had failed to 
present the necessity for giving all up to Jesus as 
clearly and fully as I had presented the privilege 
of receiving all in Jesus. 

The first reflection of my heart was the question, 
44 Is this so ? Have I failed in this way ? " And 
my first effort was to magnify my own faithfulness ; 
but this was quickly checked and the permanent 
conclusion reached that " Whatever the past has 
been, the future shall not be one-sided." How 



BOTH SIDES. 139 

fully this conclusion has been justified God knows. 
I know that the grateful remembrance of the mer- 
chant's last words has not ceased, but increased with 
each passing day. 

The merchant had been educated at Cambridge 
for the Church, but afterwards entered into com- 
merce. Years before his visit to America, the book 
" The Higher Christian Life " had been blessed to 
him. He sought to follow out its instructions fully, 
and thought he had done so : yet, though greatly 
advanced, he had failed of the complete deliverance 
from self and sin for which his soul yearned. 
Much light had dawned upon him, and he was es- 
tablished in the assurance of final full salvation 
through union with Jesus, but still remained in an 
unwilling bondage, like that of the man under the 
law, portrayed in Romans vii., and had finally almost 
persuaded himself that his bonds could only be 
broken at death. 

In our very first interview, however, the Lord 
graciously led him to give himself wholly over into 
the hands of Jesus and let himself alone there, and 
so let Jesus do His own work of delivering and 
keeping him from the evil to which he had been 
subject. So now he was at liberty, for the Son had 
made him free indeed. Now he had given all up 
to Christ as well as taken all in Christ ; he was 
Christ's and Christ was his. And now he saw 



140 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

clearly the one-sided mistake he had been making 
in past years, and therefore was tenderly solicitous 
that others might be taught both sides of this 
blessed commerce. 

THE SEVENTH IN LINEAL DESCENT 

From one of England's great Christian poets, 
bearing his name, was the unconscious means of 
bringing the English merchant and myself into per- 
sonal acquaintance with each other. And his ex- 
perience exemplifies the one-sided mistake of fail- 
ing to receive all in Jesus, as clearly as that of the 
merchant does the error of failing to give all up to 
Jesus. A beloved fellow-worker living in a village 
near New York, yet quite aside from its manner of 
commerce and circles of social life, invited a union 
convention for full salvation in the place of his res- 
idence. People came from far and near, and we 
had a glorious afternoon and evening there. 
Amongst those in attendance was this descendant 
of the poet. During the first session, one at whose 
instance this young man had come to the conven- 
tion introduced him kindly, in order that he might 
state his own case;, The young man rose and spoke 
substantially as follows : " I am a student of 
theology. A few months more will complete my 
course of study. Then I shall be expected to 
enter the ministry of the gospel. I shrink from it 



BOTH SIDES. 141 

with unutterable dread, because I know that I am 
in heart utterly unfit for the work. The conviction 
of my need of being purified from pride, ambition, 
vainglory, and all unhallowed motives and feelings, 
has been growing upon me all the while since I 
entered the theological school, and our course of 
study and training has seemed to foster and develop 
instead of uprooting and destroying the works of 
the wicked one in my heart. I sought counsel and 
aid of my fellow-students, but they gave me no 
help. Nothing that I could devise, or others sug- 
gest, was left untried ; still the darkness grew upon 
me, and became intolerable. At last I sought help 
from the senior professor in the school, venerated 
by all for his devout life, and told him that unless 
I could find relief I must abandon all thought of 
ever being a minister. He said, in tones of deep 
sadness, ; My dear brother, I can give you no 
help. At this moment I myself am in darkness 
deeper and more agonizing than you describe.' 
From this interview I went away more disheartened 
than ever. Yesterday I stated my case in a meet- 
ing, and at its close the brother who introduced me 
to you told me of this convention, said he intended 
coming to it, and invited me to accompany him. I 
came, and. here I am. Can you help me ? " 

The Lord uses the weak for His own great pur- 
poses. He caused me to see clearly the young 



142 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

man's mistake. So I said to him, ." You have opened 
your heart so freely to us that I am sure you will 
not be offended if I ask you one or two questions. 
You have tried everything you could think of, you 
tell us, to obtain the deliverance from sin that you 
need ; have you come to your own wits' end about 
the matter ? " 

" Yes, I have indeed." 

" But you have never stopped trying, and ac- 
cepted the fact that Jesus would Himself take care 
of the whole matter, have you ? " 

" No. I have thought I must keep on trying till 
delivered." 

" Will you then stop trying, and let Jesus de- 
liver you and keep you ? " 

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I see it. I see it all 
now." 

The young man's transition from darkness to 
light was so evident that a thrill of satisfaction was 
evinced in all parts of the assembly, and shortly 
afterwards he rose again and told us that the strug- 
gle was over, his bondage broken, his soul free, and 
he was filled with the fullness of God. 

One present during this scene gave some account 
of it next day, in the Fulton Street Daily Prayer 
Meeting. The English merchant heard it, and 
heard my name mentioned in connection with it, 
and learning by inquiry that I was still there, he 
came, and so we met, and he found rest in Jesus. 



BOTH SIDES. 143 

The two sides are indispensable to completeness 
in Christ. Like the student, every one must fail 
who tries to give all to Jesus, and yet fails to com- 
mit all to Him, and accept all in Him. While on 
the other hand, like the merchant, all will come 
short who think to receive all in Jesus by faith ; but 
fail to give all to Him in consecration. 

A YOUNG LADY MISSIONARY 

In her experience happily exemplified both sides, 
the receiving and the giving in full salvation. 

She became a Christian while yet a child. When 
the time came for deciding what her life-work should 
be, the question w T as pressed upon her whether she 
would become a missionary and go to India. She 
answered " No. But I will serve the Lord as a 
teacher, and remain at home." A teacher she be- 
came, and was not unblest in her w r ork. Many of 
her pupils were won to Jesus. Yet this did not 
satisfy her. Memory was busy with the old settled, 
yet unsettled question, " Will you be a missionary 
and go to India ? " Conscience troubled her, and 
she found no rest. At last she reversed her an- 
swer, and resolved to give up teaching and go as a 
missionary. The authorities received her kindly, 
but declined sending her to India until she had 
tried her hand amongst the freedmen of the South. 
South she went, and became wonderfully successful. 



144 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Many were converted. Schools were formed, and 
churches established. The Lord gathered about 
her a circle who loved her dearly, and seemed to 
depend upon her for life and progress as followers 
of Christ, and for support and defense against the 
prejudices of an unfriendly world around. So she 
made her a home there, and nestled down in it, as 
she supposed, for life. By and by her nest was dis- 
turbed, unsettled, broken up, and she was compelled 
to choose between going further South for a new 
work and a new home, and returning North with 
the view of going to India. She chose the North 
and India, but again was disappointed by lack of 
funds to send her so far. Her going to India 
seemed to turn upon the question of money, so she 
ventured to come to the great commercial metropo- 
lis, in the hope of collecting the requisite amount. 

Here she was ; her heart was all wounded and 
bruised and sore. The Lord had torn her from her 
home to go to India, then disappointed her of going 
and sent her South, given her a home and a flock 
there, then suffered her to be unsettled, her home 
broken up, and her flock left without a shepherd, 
and she driven back to the old purpose of a mis- 
sionary life in India ; and then He had disappointed 
her again and sent her to New York, amongst 
strangers, to beg money for her outfit and expenses. 
The old wounds and bruises were opened afresh 



BOTH SIDES. 145 

with the new, and her lot seemed too hard to be 
borne. Withal deep down in her soul there w r as a 
longing which neither North nor South, neither 
home nor India could have satisfied. She could 
not have defined it, yet she felt it profoundly. To 
satisfy this longing she sought out all the meetings 
she could find giving any promise of light upon the 
question deepest in her heart. She was nothing 
bettered, but rather grew worse. At last one Sun- 
day morning she heard a sermon which pleased her 
very much indeed, and the preacher gave notice 
that he would lecture that evening upon " How 
Bunyan's Pilgrim got the victory." " Ah ! " said 
she, " that is just what I want to know, how to get 
the victory ; and I will come again and hear him." 
Strangely enough, as it seemed to her, she was con- 
strained, by one whom she could not deny, to give 
up going there and go to a little meeting of Friends 
in the upper room of their house of worship. This 
was another disappointment, little in itself, yet 
large enough to make all her wounds bleed afresh. 

There in that upper room the Lord met her in a 
wonderful way. I am telling what I know, for I 
was there. By special invitation I went, and by a 
question concerning sanctification, asked of me by 
name as soon as the meeting was opened, I rose to 
speak. Question followed question on the subject, 
until it was nine o'clock, before I was permitted to 



146 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

take my seat. Little, however, did I know that the 
young lady missionary was listening, and that the 
Lord was doing a great work in her heart. One 
of the illustrations of the true nature of sanctifica- 
tion which I used was the dedication of the Taber- 
nacle in the wilderness, its consecration by Moses 
on the one side to God, and on the other side the 
coming of the Lord in and upon it to fill it, possess 
it, and control it as His own forever. This the 
Lord used to show her that she had never yet given 
herself up to Him, to be filled and kept by Him, 
nor had she received Him as an indwelling God 
and Saviour, sanctifying her to Himself fully and 
forever. She saw that she had been serving the 
Lord in her own will, and that whenever her plans 
were crossed, her heart was wounded and bruised. 
Her will had never been laid down to let His will 
flow over it. 

Another of the illustrations given was that of a 
house built for the owner by contract. The owner 
could never take possession of his house until the 
contractor left it, turned the key upon it, and 
handed it over to the owner ; then, not till then, 
he could go in and dwell there, and beautify and 
furnish it, and use it as he pleased. 

By this the Lord showed her that she had never 
given Him the key of her heart. Then came the 
question, " What if I do give Him the key ? May 



BOTH SIDES. 147 

be He will not let me go to India, and how could I 
bear that? Or may be He will require me to. 
plead His cause before mixed assemblies of men 
and women : that I can never do. I could speak 
to colored people, but to address the intelligent and 
refined in their assemblies, would be impossible." 
Her soul became a real battle-ground, and the contest 
was for the key of her heart. No bloody field was 
ever more terribly real than that, no pitched battle 
ever fought had life and death, liberty and bondage 
hinged upon its issue more absolutely than that. 
It lasted till near midnight, then Jesus conquered, 
she surrendered to Him the key of her heart, and 
He came in and filled her with His own sovereign 
presence, and enthroned Himself in her heart of 
hearts, to reign in her forever. 

Then she took her Bible and opened it, not know- 
ing where, but hoping it would be where He should 
direct. It was at Isaiah liv. As she read it under 
the illuminating power of her Sanctifier, she was 
filled and flooded with the glory of the Lord. From 
that one chapter He gave her more than she had 
ever found before in the whole Bible from beginning 
to end. Every good thing her soul could crave for 
herself, for the South, for her exposed flock left 
there, for India and the perishing ones there, for all 
her wants and wishes in this world and in the world 

to come, He unfolded to her as assured in Him, in 
11 



148 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

His boundless wisdom, power, and love, from that 
single chapter. This was the beginning : the next 
day, and day after day from that night forward, she 
found herself rejoicing in the good, acceptable, and 
perfect will of God, and joying in the God of her 
salvation with unalloyed satisfaction and ineffable 
delight. Her circumstances were not changed in 
the least. Her home in the South was not restored 
to her, nor her flock less exposed than before ; she 
had no assurance of going to India, and she was 
called to speak to mixed assemblies of the refined 
and intelligent, and did it with great delight ; and 
here she was still in the great metropolis, amongst 
strangers, without money or pledges of money to 
take her to India ; the questions where she was to 
go, when and how, were still without answer, but 
the key of all was in the hands of the Lord. And 
she was glad to have it so. In Him were all the 
treasures of wisdom and knowledge and love, and 
she knew it in her inmost soul, and that was enough 
to satisfy her perfectly. 

This for her circumstances and for her burdens, 
for the South and for India ; for herself the Lord 
was her portion, and her exceeding great reward ; 
He had taken the key and opened her heart, and 
enthroned Himself there, and was radiating His 
light and love through all the chambers of her soul. 
Never before had her mind been so employed, 



BOTH SIDES. 149 

strengthened, exalted in all its powers of compre- 
hension, and thought, and reason, or so filled with all 
that is noble, pure, and divine ; never had her heart 
been so expanded and flooded with all that is lovely 
and heavenly ; never had her will been so perfectly 
and sweetly in exercise, as now that it was brought 
in complete subjection and harmony with the will 
of God. And never had life been so rounded out 
to the ideal of all her mind could conceive or her 
heart could desire, as now that it was all in the 
hands of the Lord, for Him to order it as He 
pleased. 

Wonderfully the two sides, giving all and receiv- 
ing all, were before her at the moment her final 
struggle began. And blessedly both had their 
issue in the final surrender of the key into the 
hands of her Lord. 




XIV. 



GOD S LIKENESS TO MAX. 



IjrpHE Bible is one book, though composed of 
11 many. Its unity in spirit and truth is more 
complete than in binding and print. Once 
it seemed to me like a collection of tracts as diverse 
from each other as the names they bear, without 
any more connection intrinsically than the men had 
who wrote them. But I see now a wonderful unity 
through all their diversity. The Bible has two 
sides, an inner and an outer side, and while the outer 
side is human, the inner side is divine : the diversity 
is in the outer, and the unity is in the inner side. 

To what shall I liken it ? In one respect it 
seems to me like a continuous web of the most ex- 
quisite tapestry, comprising a vast number of succes- 
sive figures, and each figure in itself a picture of 
some historic event or personal incident. In this 
web of wonderful tapestry the pictures wrought out 
are human, but the warp, which is the foundation of 
all and which *uns through all, giving to all conti- 
nuity and unity in perpetual progress and endless 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO MAN 151 

unfolding, is all divine. It begins with the counsels 
of Creation, and ends in the new heavens and new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. It opens 
with a paradise lost, and culminates in the paradise 
found. It is stained from the first with human pol- 
lution and blood, — the pollution of lust and the blood 
of violence, — yet presents from first to last the blood 
and water of cleansing and of love as the one only 
way of purity and of peace. The Lamb of God, the 
Prince of Peace, is the one in whom Patriarchs, 
Prophets, Priests, Psalmists, Kings, and Apostles 
are all bound up together in one grand w T hole. 

In another aspect the Bible to me seems less like 
a web of tapestry with its succession of pictures, than 
like a rainbow in its continuous lines of heavenly 
beauty. Its human side, with its life-pictures, 
charms me. I am child enough to love them, and 
find ceaseless delight in turning them over and over. 
I do not wonder that the art-o-enius of the a^es has 
expended itself more in the reproduction of the 
scenes of the Bible, than in all other things together. 
There are enough of them to beautify all the palaces, 
mansions, cottages, and huts in the world, and plenty 
to spare. But when I look steadily at the divine 
side of the Bible, somehow these diversities, though 
not lost, cease to appear so prominent, and the 
underlying veins, all divine, come forth in heavenly 
harmony, each of the seven shaded off into as many 



152 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

different hues, all blended into one grand arch, the 
seal and token of God's covenant of love ; and in all 
the glory of its beauty and promise I see it as com- 
ing forth from the Sun of Righteousness, whose 
white and pure light is thus separated in the prism 
of humanity through which from heaven it streams 
down upon earth. 

Still another comparison serves to help me — that 
of an orchestra. There was a time when in listen- 
ing to the notes of a large number of instruments I 
was confused by the different parts borne by them 
in the one piece of music they were rendering. To 
my untutored ear there seemed little of harmony 
and nothing of unity, and only a bewildering diver- 
sity of sweet sounds. Ere long, however, out of 
what had seemed only a sort of dulcet jargon, there 
began to emerge to my apprehension a harmony 
and unity which soon became the glory of the whole. 
I perceived then that each instrument and every 
part supplied its quota to the completeness as well 
as to the fullness of the river of sons;. So was it 
once, so is it now, with me in respect to the Bible. 
Its diversities once jarred upon my sensibilities, and 
confused me ; but now that I see its harmony in 
unity, I am never weary of its ceaseless song of 
praise, poured forth as the voice of many waters, to 
God and the Lamb. 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO MAN. 153 

Likeness, 

Dominion, 

Union, 

Rest, 

Abiding, 

Abundance, 

Fruitfulness ; 

these are seven golden threads of the divine web, 
seven heavenly colors in the token of the covenant, 
seven parts of the river of song. 

God's image and likeness in man had its genesis 
in the counsels of Creation, and its wonderful embodi- 
ment in Christ upon earth, and is to have its glori- 
ous unveiling in the redeemed ones in heaven. 

In the counsels of Creation God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness. In the fullness 
of time Christ came forth as the Son of Man, yet 
the express image of God, the fullness of the God- 
head in bodily manifestation. And in the fullness 
of eternity those whom Christ has redeemed from 
the guilt and pollution of sin upon earth are to shine 
forth as the sun in the heavens, in the fullness of 
the divine image, changed into the glory of a per- 
fect likeness to the Son of God who has redeemed 
them. 

wherein man's likeness to god consists, 
is variously shown in the Bible. One of the definitions 



154 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

of the word likeness, is fitness, and this to me has been 
the key to the whole matter. A key fits its lock 
because it was made for it. In form it bears no 
resemblance whatever to the lock, but in fitness it 
bears its image and likeness perfectly. The eye in 
form is not in the least like the light, nor the ear 
like sound, yet in fitness the eye and light, the ear 
and sound, are as like as things can be to each other. 

In the counsels of Creation man was made for 
God ; his whole nature is suited to God's nature like 
a key to its lock, and like the eye to light and the 
ear to sound. Man's mind was made on purpose to 
take in the light of the knowledge of God, to drink 
in and pour forth the music of His praise, and to 
unlock and unfold, possess and freely distribute, the 
unsearchable treasures of wisdom and knowledge 
which are stored up in God. Man's heart is won- 
derfully suited to receive and return, and to herald 
forth to others, God's love which passeth knowledge, 
and so to be filled with and pour forth to others the 
rivers of the fullness of God. And man's will is 
constituted in all its powers to find its highest 
exercise, the glory of its activity and energy, in the 
acceptance and fulfillment of the will of God. 

Yet this likeness to God, in which and for which 
man was created, inheres not in the form or texture 
or structure of man, but in his attitude toward God. 
The whole man, turned away from God to self and 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO MAN. 155 

Satan, takes on at once the likeness of the wicked 
one. As the mirror reflects man's image when he 
stands before it, so man reflects God's image when 
God is set before him in all his thoughts, affections, 
and purposes ; or if he turns away from God to self 
and Satan, a pervert, then the image reflected in 
him and taken on by him is selfish, sensual, devilish. 



though not distinctly set forth in the account of 
his creation, is abundantly shown in the process of 
redemption. It is by the actual indwelling of God 
in man. 

There may be, or may not be, an intimation of 
this in the saying that God breathed into man the 
breath of life and he became a living soul. When 
Christ would strengthen the faith of His disciples to 
wait for and accept the promised gift of God — God's 
gift of Himself in spirit to dwell in them — He 
breathed on them, saying, u Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost." But it is certain that God's gift of Him- 
self in spirit is His final gift to us, and that it is 
by His indwelling in us in spirit, and strengthening 
us by His Spirit in our inner man that Christ may 
dwell in us by faith, that we are brought to behold 
Christ as He is, and to be changed into His image, 
from glory to glory. 

The indwelling of God in man was as plainly 



156 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

revealed in the sweet name Immanuel in the Old 
Testament, as it was gloriously verified in the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. 
Immanuel literally rendered is In-man-God. " Im " 
is only another form for in, and " el " is God. Its 
significance preeminently, therefore, is, God in us. 

God in us in spirit is the complement of God with 
us in the flesh. The purpose of grace would have 
still been altogether incomplete, if after the mani- 
festation of God in Christ we had been left without 
God's gift of Himself to us to dwell in us forever in 
spirit. He did not thus leave His purpose incom- 
plete, but did give us Himself to dwell in us forever. 

Accepted as an indwelling God, our mind given 
up to Him as its rightful object, guide, and director, 
our heart as His rightful throne that He may mould 
it to Himself and fill it with Himself as He pleases, 
and our will submitted to His will to run in all the 
way of His commandments, and to do whatever He 
pleases ; He at once transforms us into the image 
of Him who dwells and rules within. 

The reason why so many true Christians fail of 
coming into the full likeness of Christ, is that though 
they have accepted Him as their atoning Saviour, and 
exemplar of holiness, they have not accepted Him 
as an indwelling Saviour, and committed to Him the 
whole work of transforming them into His image 
and keeping them by His power. 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO' MAN. 157 

how god's image in man was destroyed 

seems simple and plain. Man, seduced by Satan, 
was turned from God to self. God was excluded from 
His rightful place as an indwelling one. Self w T as 
enthroned, and selfhood, which is the strength of the 
kingdom of darkness, took the place of God. Thus 
he ceased to bear the image of God, who is love, 
holiness, peace, and became selfish, sensual, devilish. 
He even went so far as to make for himself images 
of beasts and birds and creeping things, — yes, even 
of. devils, — and worship them. 

THE SACREDNESS OF GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN 

is shown by many things in the Bible. 

First, in the penalty attached to the prohibition of 
evil. Nothing less than capital punishment could 
express God's abhorrence of that hateful thing which 
would separate man from God, and destroy the image 
of God in man. 

Then it was shown again in the doom of Satan 
for his crime of seducing man from God. Nothing 
short of capital punishment could satisfy the divine 
indignation against one guilty of a thing so horrible. 
And there w r as a divine as well as a poetic justice 
in the form of the sentence, " The seed of the woman 
shall bruise thy head." 

A third instance in which God's estimate of the 
sacredness of His image in man appears is that of 



158 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the penalty attached, in the covenant with Noah, to 
the shedding of man's blood. " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in 
the image of God made He man." Capital punish- 
ment, the highest possible penalty, alone could suf- 
fice for a crime so great. 

This is also the significance of the woe pro- 
nounced by our Saviour upon those who should 
offend one of the little ones who believe on His 
name ; and of the one sin which alone can never be 
forgiven ; in the one case it is the crime of turning 
one of His little ones aw r ay as Satan did Eve, and 
in the other case that of rejecting the Spirit who 
comes to abide in man and transform Him into the 
image of God. 

So also it is the meaning of the Apostle's saying 
that " He who shall defile (destroy, in the Greek) 
the temple of God, him will God destroy." He who 
shall drive the Spirit from his heart, him will God 
destroy from His presence and the glory of His 
power. 

The significance of the sacredness of God's taber- 
nacle and temple of old was simply and grandly 
that of the sacredness of the image of God, by the 
indwelling of God in man. 

THE BLESSEDNESS OF GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN 

is expressed in the name u Sons of God," given to 
those who lived by faith in the early morning of the 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO MAN. 159 

world. As a man's children have their father's blood 
coursing in their veins, so God's children have Him 
in their souls. As they bear their father's name 
and inherit his property, so these are called after 
Gocl, and are His heirs. 

But it is chiefly in the wonderful fitness of God 
to man, and of man to God, by reason of which a 
sweet communion and wonderful fellowship, more 
intimate, more precious, mo-re full than can ob- 
tain between parents and children, or husband 
and wife, takes place and continues and increases 
between God and His children, that the blessedness 
consists. It is as free and as full and as constant 
as the drinking in of the light, or the breathing in 
of the air, and it is sweeter than anything that ever 
entered the heart of man to imagine. 

THE FULLNESS OF THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN 
UPON EARTH 

is simply the measure of the fullness of the image 
of God borne by our Saviour while here in the 
body. He says to the Father, t; The glory Thou 
gavest Me, I have given them ; that they may be one 
in Us, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that 
they may be one in Us ; that the ivorld may Jcnoiv that 
Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast 
loved Me." Which means this, that we may be so 
filled with God and transformed into His image, that 
we shall become a living demonstration to the world 



160 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

that God was in Christ, and that He does love them 
even as He loves His Son. 

And the way of coming into the fullness of God's 
image while yet in the flesh is simply that of accept- 
ing the fact that as Christ has bought us bv His 
blood, and purified us to God, He will also give us 
the Holy Ghost to dwell in us, and to present our 
bodies as living temples to Him, that He may come 
in and dwell in us, and have the rule of us within 
and without in all things. 

GLIMPSES OF THE GLORY 

of God's image in us in the world to come are given 
us all through the Bible, but especially as it draws 
toward its close. 

Our Saviour, after promising His disciples that 
some of them should not die before they had seen 
Him in the glory of His kingdom, took with Him 
Peter, James, and John, up into the mount, and was 
transfigured before them, and Moses and Elijah 
appeared ivith Him in glory, in the like glory. 
They were with Him and like Him. We shall be 
with Him and like Him. Now are we the sons of 
God, but it doth not appear what we shall be. But 
when He appears we shall be like Him. 

John had seen Jesus transfigured before His 
ascension. Afterward in Patmos Jesus appeared to 
him in His glory. John saw Him and described 
Him minutely. His head and His hairs like wool, 



GOD'S LIKENESS TO MAN 161 

feet as burning brass, eyes as a flame of fire, coun- 
tenance as the sun in its strength, insomuch that he 
fell before Him as dead. 

Yet only a little while after, a messenger came 
from Jesus to John to show him things to come, and 
he was so like Jesus that John seems to have mis- 
taken him for the Lord Himself, and so fell at his 
feet ; whereupon the messenger exclaimed, " See 
thou do it not : I am of thy brethren the prophets, 
worship God/' 

But what shows the likeness of the redeemed to the 
Redeemer in glory yet more forcibly, is that this very 
mistake was again made by the beloved disciple very 
soon afterwards, and was again reproved in the same 
way. 

Thus culminates this wonderful line in the end of 
Revelation, which first appears in the beginning of 
Genesis. 

The one grand lesson it impresses is this: the 
privilege of the follower of Jesus to accept the in- 
dwelling of God in the soul now, and so be fully 
transformed here below into the image He bore upon 
earth, and then give full and free play to the hope 
of the glory in the world to come, which awaits us 
when we shall come to be with Him where He is. 
Amen and amen. 




XV. 

THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH THE PERFECT 
TENSE OF VICTORY. 




^HE letters of the word 
word 



"now," 



transposed 
The word now, 



HI 

J| make the w T ord " won. 

accepted as the word of faith in Jesus, be- 
comes the word won, as the word of victory in us. 
This is true of all things promised in the gospel, 
and of every stage of salvation proffered in the 
promises; true alike of wisdom and righteousness, 
sanctification and redemption, but always and only 
as Jesus is accepted as all and as each. 

During a series of meetings for full salvation there 
sat day after day a man who knew our Lord Jesus 
Christ as his righteousness, and had known Him by 
sweet experience for several months, but was not 
yet experimentally acquainted with Him as his sanc- 
tification. He loved the Lord dearly, and loved to 
proclaim Him to others as an atoning, forgiving 
Saviour, but had not yet received Him by faith as 
his own present Saviour from sinning, and keeper in 
trial and temptation. This man listened to the tes- 
timony and teaching concerning Christ as the over- 



THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH, ETC. 163 

coming one in the heart, until he could listen in 
silence no longer, then began talking both in public 
and private in this strain : " Ah me ! Jesus with me 
all the time ? Jesus dwell in me ? Jesus keep me 
in perfect peace ? Jesus give me to w r alk in the 
light as He is in the light, in unbroken fellowship 
with the Father and the Son, and with the knowledge 
that the blood of the Son cleanseth me from all un- 
righteousness ? Me, with my quick temper, strong 
will, and life-long habits of wrong thinking and acting, 
so helpless for good, so prone to evil ? Me ? No, 
not me ; never, till I die. I do not doubt these 
dear, good people ; I believe they do experience all 
they say, and I love dearly to hear them, and be 
with them. I cannot stay away from the meetings; 
but this is for them and the like of them, not for me 
and the like of me. I shall have to struggle on all 
my days with doubts and darkness, fear and sin, 
content if I am forgiven, as I always am, when I 
come as a penitent to the cross. Ah me ! No, I 
can never look for the abiding of Christ as an over- 
comer, until death shall set me free from this mortal 
body." So passed day after day, and so he listened 
and so he talked, until one day as he sat listening, the 
word " now "came to have such an emphasis placed 
upon it as the Holy Spirit, and He alone, can place 
upon any word which He may choose to make, for 
the time, the pivot of salvation ; and then as he lis- 
tened, his heart began to soften, and to yield. He 
12 



164 



IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 



sat facing a wall upon which was suspended a cross 
within a crown wrought in evergreen. His eye 
rested upon the spaces in the angles of the cross, 
within the crown, and his imagination filled them 
with the letters of the word " now." 




And in his heart he said, u Yes, Lord, now. Yes, 
Lord, I do believe that the blood of Jesus does 
cleanse me, even me, now, from all unrighteousness." 
Still he listened and still he looked,. when lo ! the 
letters in the crown were transposed to his imagina- 
tion, and the word became the word of victory, and 




he said in his heart, " Yes, Lord, won ! Thou hast 



THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH, ETC. 165 

won the victory in me ; Thou hast conquered in my 
heart ; Thou hast given me the faith which I thought 
never would be mine while in the body. The glory 
of it all belongs to Thee. The salvation is mine, 
through faith in Thy precious name." The meeting 
still went on, and still he listened, and there came a 
moment when, at the suggestion of the leader, every 
knee was bowed as if by one impulse, — not a single 
knee in the assembly refused to bend, — and they 
sang in a tone low, sweet, solemn, deep, and 
tender, — 

" Lord, I am Thine, entirely Thine, 
Purchased and saved by blood divine ; 
With full consent Thine I would be, 
And own Thy sovereign right in me." 

Again and again they repeated these words in 
tones more tender, more deep, more sweet each time, 
until they seemed to be the fullest possible expres- 
sion of feelings inexpressible in every heart ; then 
after simple words of consecration to the Lord fully 
and forever, by the leader in behalf of each and all, 
they rose from their knees to their feet and 
sang, — 

" All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
Let angels prostrate fall ; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all," 

This also they repeated again and again, each time 



166 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

more heartily than before, until it seemed to be the 
spontaneous expression of every soul in its action of 
crowning Him in the kingdom within, as Lord of all. 
While this was transpiring, the man in whose heart 
the word of faith now had been transposed into the 
word of victory, won, went with all his soul into the 
consecration, with a sweetness and gladness surpass- 
ing all he had ever known before, and then on into 
the coronation ; and as the incense of their song 
rose upon the breath of their faith, his soul went out 
in unspoken w T ords like these : " Oh that I had the 
wings of the morning, that I might fly up through the 
roof ! Yes, up through the skies, and come into the 
presence of His glory, and crown Him Lord of all ! 
Yes, and in my heart of hearts, I do now crown Him 
Lord of all, to reign in me, and over me forever, to 
subdue and conquer all His enemies and mine." 

Do you, as you contemplate this scene, say in 
your heart, " Would that I might be in such a 
place and pass through such a change *' ? The 
place w T as indeed very blessed ; the memory of it will 
linger, like the aroma of frankincense in the temple, 
many days in the hearts of those who were there per- 
mitted to be in heavenly places in Christ. Yea, and 
doubtless others than this man's soul were given up 
to Jesus in the consecration and in the coronation, 
and did find the kingdom of God, which is righteous- 
ness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost, thenceforth 



THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH, ETC. 167 

not only near but fully set up within, and have 
found it an abiding kingdom founded on the Rock of 
Ages. But tell me, is it necessary to be in such a 
place, to pass through such a change ? The place 
for you is just where you are, not where somebody 
else has been ; and the time is now, not by and by. 
All places are alike to Jesus. He is able to enthrone 
Himself in your heart from this moment, and subdue 
and conquer all His enemies and yours, from this 
time forward forever, and will do it, if you will now 
give up to let Him do it, and accept Him as doing 
it upon the strength of His word alone. But the 
change — do you say, " Ah me, how shall I secure 
the great change in myself which is necessary in 
order that Christ may reign in me, in the blessedness 
of His kingdom ? " Change in yourself ! Why, my 
dear fellow-Christian, you need no such change in 
yourself as you imagine ; indeed, you need no change 
in yourself at all as a preparation for the reign of 
Christ in you. The thing required is not a change 
in you, but simply that as you are you give up looking 
for any change, and take Christ at His word that 
He is with you and will abide with you always, 
and will Himself be your salvation as well as your 
Saviour. 

YOUR MISTAKE 

is that of looking for an experience. You do not 
take Christ for all now, because you are looking for 



168 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

some kind of an experience first. Why, beloved, 
salvation is nob by experience, but by faith. Faith 
does not rest on experience, but on the word of God. 
Faith is not believing you'have an experience, but 
believing you have Christ. It is not believing that 
some great change has been wrought in you, but that 
Jesus is with you and within you, to save you and 
keep you and purify you unto Himself. Unbelief 
says, u He is not with me ; oh how I wish He was." 
Faith says, '■ He is with me." Unbelief says, u Oh 
that I were so changed that Jesus could take up His 
abode in me, and dwell with me forever." Faith 
says, " All unworthy and unfit as I am, Jesus is 
with me and does dwell in me, and will abide with 
me always." What you want is faith, not a change, 
not feeling, not an experience. Do you say, " Yes, 
I believe it ; oh that I had faith " ? 

What is the faith you want ? Is it a faith which 
is like the grasp of a giant, so strong that nothing can 
loosen its hold upon Christ ? 

No, not at all. It is the faith which accepts the 
fact, upon the strength of God's word, that Christ has 
hold of you by the grasp of His own mighty love, 
mighty to save, and will not let you go ; that He takes 
you just as you are, and takes you now, just where 
you are, and will lead you in all the way before you, 
bear you through every trial and trouble, difficulty 
and temptation ; that His blood cleanses you from all 



THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH, ETC. 169 

sin, and His power will overcome all His enemies 
and yours ; that He will fight your battles for you, 
and give you henceforth to think and speak in the 
present tense of the word of faith, now, and have its 
transposition as the word of victory, won, abiding 
ever with you. Do you not see your mistake ? You 
have been looking for the victory before the faith. 
You would put first into the spaces around the cross 
the letters won, arid then afterwards, and as a 
consequence of this, the letters N w. This is your 
idea, and this is the way you have longed to have it ; 
but this is not God's idea, and it is not the way He 
will have it. You are to accept Jesas as yours now, 
and as your all-sufficient Saviour to meet every want 
of your soul now, and then He will give you in His 
own way to understand and realize the transposition 
into the victory WON. 

See how it works : unlike the carnal warfare in 
which victory perches upon the standard of those 
who fight and conquer, the pivot of victory in the 
Christian war is surrender, unconditional surrender. 
He who surrenders, wins. Every surrender to Christ 
is a victory. The greater the thing at stake, the 
greater the conquest in the surrender. The instant 
the citadel of the soul is unconditionally surrendered 
to Christ, He comes in, takes possession, sets up 
His banner, turns its guns on His enemies and ours, 
and not only holds sway within, but puts all enemies 



170 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

to flight. As long as we fight on, in the line of our 
own leadership, we keep Christ out, and are defeated 
continually. 

What is the victory you are fighting for ? Is it 
a conscious realization that Christ saves you from 
sin, saves you now as an experience, a change ; is it 
that? Surrender it at once to Christ. Make no 
demands of Him, but comply with every demand 
He makes of you ; surrender to Christ is victory 
in us. 

AN OFFICER OF HIGH RANK 

in the civil service was at the same time an officer 
in the Church of his choice. He loved the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and knew that through faith in Him 
his sins were forgiven. Besides his work as super- 
intendent of the Sunday-school and participant in all 
the affairs of his own particular congregation, and 
of the denomination to which it belonged, he was 
actively engaged in outside union work of the Young 
Men's Christian Association, and did not hesitate 
to stand up for Jesus in open air services as w r ell as 
within doors, at any time and at whatever cost. 

Nevertheless he knew he was not what he ought 
to be as a follower of Christ. He was led to hear 
much about a higher Christian life as an experience, 
but rejected all he heard, with no little disgust. 
That which touched his heart was the Bible standard 
confirmed by the sweet example of his own dear 



THE PRESENT TENSE OF FAITH, ETC. 171 

mother. He knew he was not what she was, and 
felt that he ought to be a better man than he was.* 
This conviction pressed upon him, and as he weighed 
the matter, it weighed upon him more and more 
until it came to an issue, short, sharp, and decisive. 

One day the question came up in his mind, What 
about your office ? Will you let the Lord Jesus 
Christ decide whether you shall be reelected or not, 
when your present term expires ? As he pondered 
this question, it assumed a form still sharper. Will 
you, when the time comes, stand up in the most pub- 
lic place of your city, and speak for Jesus, if He bids 
you do it, even though it shall cost you the loss of 
the votes that would otherwise reelect you ? 
• What could be more sharply defined? 

This was the turning-point with him. Everything 
else he had already given up with comparative ease, 
but here was not the only last thing, but the greatest 
of all, before him. Like the young man in the 
gospel, he was very sorrowful, for the prize was 
no ordinary one, but unlike him, he did not turn 
away. No, he surrendered ; he said, Yes, Lord, if 
Thou sayest it, all that Thou biddest me I will do. 
Let me be wholly Thine though it costs me my 
office. No sooner this than Jesus took possession of 
the surrendered citadel. Nor was He long in unfold- 
ing His sweet presence and exerting His peaceful, 
powerful, loving sway. Away went the vile habit 



172 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

which had been polluting his breath and holding him 
in the chains of appetite, and away went appetite 
with it, never more to trouble him with its cravings, 
cured at once and supplanted by disgust for that 
which he had before loved and supposed himself 
chained to as long as he should live. 

Away went pride, vanity, ambition, and the hydra 
which had annoyed him and held sway in his heart. 
And in came Jesus, chiefest among ten thousand, 
altogether lovely, as King of kings and Lord of 
lords, reigning in meekness and quietness, in love and 
light and peace and joy ; yet filling him with an 
enthusiasm which went forth in a life of gladness by 
day, and followed him in dreams of triumph in the 
night. 

Observe, now, all this experience was an after 
thing, unsought as such ; a great, glad surprise in 
coming at all, as well as in the form it assumed. That 
which preceded it and was the key to it all was not 
the kind of victory you have been yearning for, but 
defeat rather ; an unconditional surrender of the 
whole matter to Jesus. 

Oh surrender, surrender ; let Jesus have you ; let 
Him have every question concerning you ; demand 
nothing of Him ; withhold nothing from Him ; leave 
all in His hands, and accept w : hat He brings. This 
do, and do it now ; then the victory will be won. 




XVI. 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD. 




^UR Lord took a child and placed him in the 
seat of honor at His side, as the true type 
of greatness. He has set before me a child 
as a marvelous example, so marvelous that I cannot 
refrain from letting you share with me the lessons 
He teaches by her. That this child is a girl, and 
not a boy, adds to the marvel, and, if you will accept 
it, tells also of a future greatness of woman's in- 
fluence for Jesus, which as yet is only in its child- 
hood. 

This little girl is now thirteen and a half years of 
age, and has given, in the eighteen months since 
she was twelve, eighty-two dollars in money to send 
the gospel to those who have it not. 

" She must be rich," do you say? 

Not so. Look at her ! The clothes she has on 
are her own handiwork. She spun the yarn, wove 
the cloth, and made them up with her own hands. 
She is not worth a penny in the world. 



174 IX THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

" Somebody must have given her the money 
then; " is that your thought ? 

No ; she earned every cent of it by her own 
hard work. 

u Surely, then, she must live where everything 
favors her, where employment is plenty and wages 
are high." 

Nothing of the kind ; all the other way. She 
lives in a little back-country neighborhood, where 
employment is scarce and wages very low. 

" The child certainly, then, must have given her 
whole time to earning the money. She could not 
have had anything else to do." 

Mistaken again. Her mother is a poor widow, 
almost blind, and quite lame from a rheumatic 
affection. There is in the family an aged grand- 
mother, entirely helpless, bowed double with toil 
and years, whom they support ; the three, grand- 
mother, mother, and daughter, comprise the house- 
hold, and the child is the main stav. 

They have a little, rough, hill-country farm of 
twenty acres, which has to be cultivated and kept 
up, and a cow to be milked and fed. The little 
girl has therefore on her shoulders the work of a 
woman in the house, and of a man out-of-doors. 

She helped, while yet her mother was able to do 
more than she can do now, to spin and weave cover- 
lets, carpets, and cloth, to purchase their farm, build 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD, 175 

their house, maintain the family, and keep out of 
debt. They owe no man anything but love. With 
all this she has gone to school in a little district 
school-house what time she could. 

Are you filled with wonder, as to how she could 
earn so large a sum of money, in so short a time, 
with so much besides to do? I am sure I was, 
and do not yet cease my amazement. The ways in 
which it was done are indeed more surprising than 
all the rest. She snatched what time she could 
after school., to pick berries in their season, and be- 
fore school in the morning she carried them four 
miles on foot to a village and sold them. By this 
alone she gathered thirty dollars in a single season. 

She worked for wages in the hay-field, and earned 
something by that. 

Another employment by which she earned 
money, I hate to mention, because you will think it 
so hard. Nevertheless it must not be kept back. 
Moreover, I remember working in the days of my 
childhood at the same kind of toil, and it really was 
not half so hard as you might think. It was gather- 
ing stones out of the field and laying them up into 
wall as a fence. 

Of all her devices, however, that which shows the 
child-woman most was this : on their little farm 
stands one lone little sugar-maple tree. As the 
spring season drew on, and sugar-making time came, 



176 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

she took a gimlet and bored into the tree, and in- 
serted a cut goose-quill as a tube or "spile," so 
called, for the sap to run through and drop into a 
dish which she placed underneath, that she might 
take it and boil ifc down in syrup and sugar to sell 
and get money. The neighbors, seeing this, kindly 
gave her the use of six other trees on their lands, and 
tapped them properly for her with auger and spile. 
Out of the seven sugar maples she drew quite a 
quantity of golden syrup, and turned it into money 
for the darling object of her heart. 

" Well, she must be large and stout for her age," 
do you say ? 

No ; she is slight in form, and bent already with 
toil. 

u Poor child ! " do you exclaim, " how hard ! Oh, 
how I pity her ! " 

Yes, indeed, she w T orks hard, but your pity you 
may keep for those who know not her delights. 
Jesus has filled her with gladness in Himself such 
as it never entered the heart of those who do not 
know Him in his fullness to conceive ; and He has 
taught her His own grand secret, that u It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." 

One who knows and loves her well says, " I am 
sure the world does not contain a happier child than 
this same hard-working little girl. Look upon her 
and she smiles brightly ; give her a word and she 
laughs out. She is brimful of happiness." 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD. 177 

One day in the spring she jotted this down in her 
journal : — 

. ..." It is warm. "We may have a run of sap. 
I would turn the sweet into the sweeter. Verily 
there is nothing so sweet to me as to give for mis- 
sions. 

" i The words of the Lord are spirit and life. 
Oh how I want to send them forth ! ' " 

Some rhymes written by her, homespun like her 
garments though they are, yet tell the story. It 
seems she had been chided for w T hat she was doing, 
as carrying the thing too far, and so justifies her- 
self to herself in reasoning rhyme. First comes a 
glance at what is doing in the nations to make Jesus 
known, and at the bondage of the multitudes who 
know Him not. Then she ejaculates her deep de- 
sire that the work may be carried on, and then asks 
herself: — 

li Shall I pray only with my tongue ? 
My hands, my feet, must also pray : 
Each power of mind must work this way." 

Then after accepting the Apostle's injunction to re- 
member those in bondage as bound with them, as 
rightfully applying to herself, she speaks of the 
Saviour's example in giving Himself for sinners, 
and then asks, — 

" Should I account it much to do, 
To earn the dimes, and give them too ? 



178 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

We spend our pence for vainest things, 

Which not one drop of comfort brings : 

True joy attends the smallest gift 

Bestowed from love to Christ. 

Some say I make a great ado ; 

It should be great ; Christ thought so too : 

lie commanded us to send 

His word to earth's remotest end. 

If Him we love, we'll Him obey, 

And work, and give while it is day ; 

Nor loiter till the time is past, 

And then regret our wrong at last. 

Oh, let us wisely fill each hour, 

By doing all that's in our power, 

To show our Saviour's dying love ! 

Then rest with Him in realms above." 

Behold this child ! The Lord sets her in the 
place of honor that we may see how like Him she is. 
With her there is no seeking after what she shall 
eat or drink or wear, but an earnest desire to save 
those who are lost. In one of her journal jottings 
she mentions having been to the village to have, as 
she words it, a my homely picture taken for a dear 
young friend in Christ," and then she goes on to 
say,— 

" My picture cost pains and pence, and is value- 
less. Christ's likeness is freely bestowed, and is 
the only valuable possession we can have. Oh to 
have His image stamped upon me ! Jesus, help me 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD. 179 

to accept the gift, and to bear Thy image to Thy 
glory in winning others to accept and wear it too ! " 

How like to Jesus in this love of souls ! No 
grasping after worldly treasures for herself, but an 
eager willingness to do and endure everything to 
earn money and turn it into the gospel for the lost. 
No counting over the hardships of her lot, but an 
unspeakable delight in the privilege of transmuting 
the sweet into the sweeter, and the stones of the 
field into the bread of life for famishing men, count- 
ing her toil for this her joy, and speaking of it as a 
duty only when accused of doing too much, thus ex- 
cusing her love service on the ground that she ought 
to render it, and even then hiding herself and her 
service behind Christ and His cross. 

There is no asking, How much must I give of what 
I have got ? but How much may I earn, all for Jesus ? 
No asking How much must I do ? but What can I do 
to get money, not out of men, but out of the woods 
and the fields, for the salvation of those for whom 
my Saviour laid down His life ? 

Oh how far is her questioning removed from that 
which we hear so often in the families of those who 
have wealth, questioning about the pleasures of the 
world, amusements and dress ! " Do you think it 
is wrong to dance, to dress, to play cards, to attend 
the opera or theatre ? " 

Her pleasures in life — and I can easily believe 
13 



180 7.Y THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

that the world does not contain a happier child, and 
that she is brimful of real happiness — are beautiful 
in the beauties of holiness, and so too is her home- 
spun apparel. Oh ! how beautiful it is, that with 
her hard earnings in her hand, the thought never 
seems to occur to her, " Would it not be all the 
Lord requires if I should give Him a tenth ? and 
then I could buy for myself with the nine tenths a 
dress, a bonnet, boots, ribbons, or laces." No, but 
with singleness and gladness of heart she rejoices 
without a regret, in using it all to send forth the 
Word of the Lord. 

Behold her! No tithing. All is the Lord's. 
She is not even conscious of the wonderful liberty 
she enjoys, in perfect freedom from all law in giving 
but the law of love, all for Jesus. 

A dear and noble brother in the Lord, largely 
interested in the manufacture of textile fabrics, mak- 
ing a great deal of money, has just told me that he 
rejoices with exceeding joy, in liberation from his 
old bondage to the law of a seventh or tenth, by the 
new freedom of all for Jesus ; but this dear child 
never knew any such bondage. Her school is the 
school of Christ, and He has first filled her with joy 
in Himself, and then heaped it up and pressed it 
down and made it to overflow, by leading her into 
the glorious privilege of turning, by the touch of her 
toil, the sap of the trees, the berries of the woods, 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD. 181 

and the very stones of the field, into the Word of 
Life with wings for the nations. 

" How came she ever Iby such a Christ-like 
mind ? " 

Well may you ask that. I asked it, too ; and the 
answer has come clear and full ; partly out of what 
she herself has jotted in a journal, which she has 
been keeping since the day she was twelve ; partly 
out of some things written by her aside from her 
journal ; and partly from the lips of her mother. 

This answer shall be given. It touches scenes 
in the history of the household which are as marvel- 
ous and beautiful as the fruit they bear. 

But now, first, a few words about the difference 
between this dear child and my beloved friend the 
manufacturer, and others, helpful if possible in 
clearly apprehending the unspeakable privilege of 
holding all for Jesus, free from all embarrassments 
whatever. 

This dear child needs no capital to carry on her 
business. Already she has helped her mother to 
earn, pay for, and furnish their home, and they have 
it out of debt. She faithfully and lovingly serves as 
maid and man of all works in keeping " things 
straight," in doors and out, and aids at the spinning- 
wheel and loom in earning daily supplies for the 
family, and no thought enters her heart that in all 
this there is hardship for a child like her. Evi- 



182 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

dently she accepts it all as a blessed service of love 
from Christ for Him and her beloved mother and 
grandmother. And in her kind of business, in mak- 
ing money for the Lord, beyond that which goes to 
sustain and gladden the home, she needs no invest- 
ments. Her capital is in the bushes and trees and 
stones, from which she makes large profits and divi- 
dends, all of which go to the one stockholder, our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

My friend the manufacturer, on the other hand, 
whilst he with the same cheerfulness does all for 
his precious family that the Lord would have him 
do, and holds all he can make as the Lord's for the 
wants of his own household and for the glory of the 
kingdom of God, yet requires large investments in 
mills and other appliances for his kind of business in 
making money, all for Jesus. He requires no in- 
vestments, as treasures laid up on earth for himself 
or his children ; his treasures and theirs he lays up 
in heaven, but he increases capital in so far forth 
only as it will enable him to do more for the Lord. 
And from year to year as he takes account of stock, 
his joy is full in finding always inscribed on every- 
thing, All for Jesus, and in seeing that the amount 
each year put into the blessed channels of the waters 
of the river of life, to make glad and glorious the 
City of God, is enlarged. 

Other friends I have, very dear ones too, who are 
differently situated from both of these. They are 



BEHOLD THIS CHILD. 183 

engaged, each in some special work of the Lord, 
like that of George Miiller in England, in which all 
they have in the world is immediately invested. 
Their homes, offices, and all are part and parcel of 
their special work, and their own support and that 
of their households come out of it, as all their earn- 
ings, as well as the gifts they receive, go into it. 
This is right for them, and is glorious for the Lord. 
But it would be wrong for the child to sell the 
house and farm if she could, or for the manufacturer 
to sell his mills, and give the money all to George 
Miiller. It would in the one case be killing the 
goose that lays the golden egg, and in the other 
breaking up the very nest. The grand privilege 
of All for Jesus then is this freedom from the bond- 
age of idolatry to the world in laying up treasures 
on earth, and from the captivity to its vanities and 
pleasures, on the one hand, and on the other, com- 
plete emancipation from the bondage of law as to 
how much must be, or ought to be, given to the 
Lord, by the perfect liberty of the principle of love 
which holds all joyously as the Lord's, and asks, How 
much may I do, or can I give, for this or that branch 
of the Lord's work ? holding always first that one's 
own household must be provided for with things 
honest, and that without owing anything of debt, 
and also that whatever capital is required in the 
business to which the Lord calls one must also be 
held sacred as an investment — All for Jesus. 




XVII. 

HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 

^OD took to Himself three children from one 
||) house, all their parents had, in one day. The 
black fever, that awful scourge, was passing 
through the region and leaving one or more dead in 
almost every home, and it fell upon these three little 
ones, and there were their dead bodies all in the same 
room together. In the night the dead-cart came and 
bore them away. The stricken mother, when they 
were gone, bowed before the Lord, and gave them up 
to Him ; and He turned her thoughts away from the 
dead-cart on its way to the burial place, and away 
from the dark, cold ground where their bodies were 
to be laid away, within the veil to Himself and the 
glories of the home to which He had already taken 
her little trio of loved ones, and she w 7 as comforted, 
nay, filled with joy in the Lord. 

Then with all her heart, there in that hour, in 
that room whence they had been taken home to 
God, she freely and fully gave up to Him and laid 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 185 

over into His hands, as His own forever, her unborn 
babe. And four months after that this child was 
born. 

Happy would it be if every father and mother, 
from whose homes upon earth the Lord takes their 
loved ones to His home in heaven, would give them 
up to Him, and let Him turn their thoughts away 
from the empty place in the earthly home, to the 
newly filled one in the heavenly house, and away 
from the tomb where the body lies, to the throne 
where the spirit is with the King. And happy, 
happy, happy would it be for mothers and children, 
yea, and for the Church and the world, if every 
mother would lay over into the hands of the Lord 
her child, whether born or unborn, to -be held and 
kept and fashioned by Him in His own way, after 
the image of His own dear Son. 

How well the Lord does the work thus commit- 
ted to Him, we have already in part seen in the case 
of this little girl. Oh, how Christ-like is her greater 
delight in giving than in receiving ! and oh, how 
like Him, too, is she in her love for the lost ! Oh ! 
who is so worthy to be intrusted with our children, 
born or unborn, as the Lord ? Who so wise in 
counsel, so wonderful in working? Is it not better 
to give them wholly to Him forever, than to lend 
them awhile to the world, in the hope that by and 
by, when the world is worn out, the Lord will turn 
them to Himself, and make it all right in the end ? 



186 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

This night-scene is from the mother's own lips, 
and lets us into the secret of the hidden power by 
which this little girl has been so quickly and so fully 
led to accept the beautiful lineaments of Christ. 

Side by side with this night-scene must be placed 
a day-scene, drawn in rhyme by the pen of the little 
girl herself, which throws a light strong and rich 
upon the instrument by which the Lord has fash- 
ioned her to His own mind. 

This scene is in their little cottage home, and of 
frequent if not of daily occurrence. It is that of the 
aged grandmother reading the Bible, hour after 
hour, aloud to herself, while her daughter and 
granddaughter listen and catch the word for them- 
selves as she reads. 

The grandmother is doubled together by toil and 
years, and utterly helpless, but can see, and though 
her articulation is indistinct, she can read aloud. 
The mother is nearly blind and quite lame, but can 
work with her hands. The child is busy here and 
there, quietly moving around in the house-work, 
and both, while engaged in their affairs, are listen- 
ing, intent upon what falls from the old lady's lips. 

a Long hours she'll read, God's will to find : 
Ma can't read much, she's nearly blind : 
I needs must toil to keep things straight. 
With cautious tread no noise to make. 



HO W IT CAME TO PA SS. 187 

Grandma reads with broken voice, 

Still it makes all our hearts rejoice ; 

Her speech has sadly felt Time's power ; 

We catch the word, 'cause read before. 

Thus God hath us this channel left, 

Through which comes love and light and rest." 

This is the Church in their house, and this is the 
way in which the gospel is preached in that Church. 
Who shall say that there is not as much of heaven 
in that Church, with its undesigned and formless 
daily service, as in the most elaborate service of 
pulpit oratory and artistic music in our marble tem- 
ples ? One of the exquisite touches of this picture 
is that of the significant glancing look of the mother 
from the daughter to the Book before the aged 
grandmother : — 

" I know the meaning of that look ; 
It tells on whom our help is laid 
To bear the ills that sin has made. 
Sin is the cause of every ill ; 
Christ our help, God's sweet words reveal. 
Ma looks all this without a word, 
No breath of sound from her is heard." 

With the one Book for their library and the 
Holy Comforter as sole guide into all its treasures, 
this little Church in the home, with its daily Bible- 
reading, is rich indeed, and one can understand how 
even this little girl, in the back hill country, with- 



188 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

out a church or minister, or the educational advan- 
tages of our villages even, should in such an atmos-- 
phere be developed and matured for God and heaven 
more fully at thirteen than many Christians are at 
threescore and ten. 

Another light, quaint but clear, comes out upon 
this child's character from her own pen, in the form 
of journal jottings, together with other writings. 

At twelve she began to write, and the wonder is, 
not that her thoughts w T ere clothed in homespun 
like her person, but that with all she had to do, and 
only a country district school to attend w 7 hat time 
she could, she should be able to write at all. Her 
first journal entry was her first attempt at writ- 
ing, and is in fact her ow 7 n autobiography briefly 
given : 

" . I am twelve years old to-day. I 

was born in , in the county of , and State 

of , on the day of , 18 — . 

u I enjoyed the society of my parents until I was 
five years old, and then my father died, and we 
moved to this place where we now live. 

" I never enjoyed many religious privileges ex- 
cept the funerals of our relatives. 

u When I was seven Mr. came and held a 

series of religious meetings in the school-house, a 
mile and a quarter from our home, and I attended 
some. At that time I began to see how great a sin- 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 189 

ner I was, and how much Jesus loved sinners, to die 
for them. Ever since that, I have desired to love 
God with all my heart, and to do all I could for His 
cause ; but until a year ago I never dared to call my- 
self really a child of God. All I have ever given for 
missions is twelve dollars ; just one dollar for each 
year of my life. I must do more ; and I will. But 
what can I — a mere child — do ? 

" I can write ; and I will. I can w r rite an 
acrostic on my grandfather's name, and I will : and 
some more." 

The acrostic does not appear among her writings, 
though the " some more" does, as we shall pres- 
ently see. But how distinctly she marks the turn- 
ing points in the fashioning process of her life and 
character ! 

The time, and the change wrought, when the light 
of the Lord was let in upon her, showing herself to 
herself as a sinner, and revealing Christ to her as a 
Saviour, need no comment. 

The time, too, when she received the greater 
light is no less distinctly marked. Four years, 
from seven to eleven, passed between the two, but 
for the clear shining forth of that light in her life 
and words, we must look into her subsequent writ- 
ings in prose and rhyme. 

The wording of the change in this journal entry 
leaves no room for doubt that at eleven she came 



190 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

into the full assurance of her acceptance with God 
as her father ; but in her subsequent jottings as well 
as other writings, she expresses an assurance also 
of the presence of Christ with her all the time as 
her Saviour from sin, and of the fullness of salva- 
tion she already enjoys in Him. 

Here, for example, are some lines of hers : — 

" I cannot comprehend much change, 
When I my final heaven shall gain ; 
While I am here, I'm wholly blest ; 
In every state in Christ there's rest. 

« Freely Thou first Thyself didst give, 
That all might come to Thee and live ; 
Freely Thou giv'st me faith to see, 
That from all sin Thou set'st me free. 

" !N"o grief is grief with Christ within : 
"No sin can reign, where Christ doth reign. 
Thy perfect righteousness bring in : 
Within our hearts do Thou remain." 

In the present living union with Christ expressed 
in these lines we see a depth and wealth of experi- 
mental endowment and spiritual teaching away be- 
yond an assurance of present acceptance and of 
eternal salvation ; it brings a present heaven into 
her own soul. 

How sweetly, in the following entries in her jour- 
nal, she portrays the present rest in Jesus and the 
future rest with Him ! 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 191 



Quite snowy. Oh, how white and 



beautiful ! It is the handiwork of my Father. Oh, 
He will clothe His ransomed ones with far surpass- 
ing robes of righteousness ! I feel a sweet trust in 
God. I believe His every word. He cares for 
me ; yes, me. Oh, how dear His word is to me ! 
'Tis food to my soul. I think I understand it bet- 
ter for realizing that its Author is immediately pres- 
ent when I read. 

" How sweet is rest to the weary ! Oh, eternal 
rest, — to rest endlessly in the presence-chamber of 
the King of kings ! Rest in Jesus here ; rest with 
Him there. Only the mortal gets weary : the spirit 
rests in her Beloved, and drinks in of His fullness. 
Oh, the consolations of His Holy Spirit ! Oh, the 
sweetness of His word ! A sense of His actual 
presence makes it doubly precious. He smiles and 
enlightens every word." 

The same recognition of the present rest with 
that of the future is expressed in this : — 

" '. Thirteen to-day. What cause for 

gratitude that I have a Christian mother ! Rather 
that I have a precious Saviour ! He has chosen 
me, unworthy me, an heir of salvation. He saves 
me with a present and an eternal salvation. He is 
my righteousness, and He is also the Author and 
Finisher of the faith that accepts Him, my present 
and my everlasting Rest." 



192 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

" . A day of rest. Rest ? It is all rest 

— rest in Jesus ; every burden, every anxiety, 
every care. He careth for me. He is all-sufficient. 
Rest in the fullness of His love here, and rest in 
His unchanging promise of an endless rest above. 
God, accept the gratitude I feel." 

The nearness of heaven to her, while yet in the 
body, is expressed in the following : — 

" -. Sick, all of us, but pain is sweet. God 

sees it best, and He always shows His beauty so 
brightly ! I ever feel to say, ' If Thou art ready, I 
am ; but if I can do anything to honor Thee, I'll 
gladly stay.' What shall I render to my God for 
all His benefits ? Indeed, I'll try to honor Him as 
much as I can. But then this makes matter for 
more gratitude, for He worketh in me to will and to 
do. Oh, how I am in debt ! Free grace the past ; 
free grace ahead ; free grace all around every- 
where ! Oh, I'm wholly lost in free grace ! " 

This debtorship to grace is again expressed in 
another day of trial : — 

" . Grandma lame, aunt very poorly, cow 

sick, and I feel nearly sick in body but well in 
mind, for God never forsakes those who trust in 
Him. * Oh, what a God we have ! The Author 
and Finisher of our faith, and then rewards us for 
accepting the rich, free provisions of His grace ! 
Oh, I'm lost in trying to contemplate God's love to 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 193 

rebel man ! Oh, how I want to show this love to 
every soul of man ! " 

Never having united with the visible Church, she 
thought to do so, and arranged to go on the day set 
for it to the village four miles away, but was kept 
at home by stormy weather, and jotted down the 
following : — 

" . Have not been to . No doubt it 

is best. Our Sovereign Ruler is too wise to err. 
I'm perfectly happy in God's hands. I wish above 
everything to promote His glory on earth. My 
portion forever ! Oh, how this vibrates the inner 
shrine of my poor heart ! 

" Rainy, rainy. May God rain righteousness in 
my soul ! Have dwelt much on the theme of 
Christ's wholly vanquishing sin and Satan for us. 
Let faith embrace all the gift of God in Christ." 

Self- distrust, with entire confidence in Christ as 
her own present Saviour from the dominion of sin, 
and a clear apprehension that it is not according to 
feeling, but faith, that He saves, is shown by 
another of these journal jottings : — 

" . Almost as warm as summer this morn- 
ing. Very cold to-night. The sudden changes are 
fit emblems of my unstable heart. One hour I feel 
as though I could do all things ; the next how weak 
my faith ; yet not discouraged ; my help is laid on 
One mighty to save ; yes 9 to save with a present 



194 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

salvation ; to wholly save me from the ruling power 
of sin." 

" . Another week has carried its record 

to the Eternal. Oh, I tremble when I look at self, 
remembering that ' without holiness no man can see 
the Lord.' But oh, exulting word ! Help is laid 
on One who is mighty to save. Christ's never- fail- 
ing righteousness shall cover me, yes, me ! Oh, the 
fullness of Christ ! We may rest in Him. We 
live in Jesus. He will dwell in us. We may abide 
in Him. What can separate us from the love of 
Christ ? " 

Distinct answers to prayer are noted in her jour- 
nal, such as these : — 

" . Could not go to school, the snow is 

so deep. Commenced a pair of mittens for Mr. 
Sayre. Have had a manifest answer to prayer to- 
day." 

Thereupon she breaks forth in the Psalmist's 
words, " Bless .the Lord, my soul ! " and adds, 
u the Sovereign Ruler notices a worm. The secret 
this : we are brought nigh by the blood of Christ, 
that ever-speaking blood. ' I in them, Thou in me : 
my blood bought their peace.' " 

" _ H ac 1 the most evident answer to 

prayer to-day. How can we but have faith ! Jesus 
is the Truth. He says, ' Ask and ye shall receive.' " 

One other day's jottings must be given, telling of 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 195 

perfect peace in the threefold trial of sickness, loss, 
and wanton unkindness from those she had never 
injured: — 

" . ' They shall be kept in perfect peace 

whose minds are stayed on Thee.' My mind has 
dwelt on this peace all day. I have felt very sick, 
but very happy. How can I but be happy, when 
God Himself has shown so much interest in my hap- 
piness ! My day has been fraught with things cal- 
culated to vex and perplex me ; losses and wanton 
unkindness from those I have never injured, but 
God has sweetly verified His word. How calm and 
tranquil I have felt ! 6 Bless the Lord, O my 
soul ! ' " 

The lines given, evidently the outgoings of her 
heart, not a poetic fancy, reveal a living union be- 
tween her and Christ in which she " is so wholly 
blest," that she u cannot comprehend much change " 
when she shall enter the rest above. The journal 
jottings confirm this, and speak of her perfect rest in 
Christ ; of instant readiness to go w T hen Christ is 
ready to have her ; of joyous acquiescence in God's 
will; of faith in Christ as a complete vanquisher of 
sin and Satan for us ; of entire distrust of herself 
and perfect confidence in Christ ; of distinct an- 
swers to prayer and of being kept in perfect peace : 
without one word to the contrarv of all this during 
the eighteen months that she has been writing down 
the experiences and events of her life. 
14 



196 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

One other fact must also be put with those 
already given : this little girl never heard one word 
from mortal lips about another and deeper Christian 
experience after that of the new birth, until after 
that she had herself come into it and been living in 
it for months. 

When she did hear about it from others, and was 
asked her views, she wrote the following, which 
quaintly enough she introduced by saying, " I was 
requested by a mother in Israel to write my views 
on this subject. Alas, I am but a child. May God 
assist." 

COMPLETENESS IN CHRIST. 

" How did we receive Christ ? Was He not 
' made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, 
and redemption ' ? 

" If we have really put off the old man with his 
deeds, and have put on the new man, who is re- 
newed in knowledge after the image of Him who 
created him, and abide in Him, may we not adopt 
this language : fc For I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord ? ? 

" ' God is love.' ' Love is the fulfilling of the 
law.' If God resides in the soul, sin shall not dwell 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 197 

there. 6 1 will be a Father unto you, and ye shall 
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Al- 
mighty/ ' I will put my law into your heart, and 
write it on your thoughts ; from all your filthiness 
will I cleanse you.' 6 Thou hast forgiven the in- 
iquity of Thy people, Thou hast covered all their 
sins.' 4 Bless the Lord, my soul ! who forgiveth 
all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases ; 
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crown- 
eth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies.' 
' This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, 
and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. 5 

" Is not God our righteous law-giver ? Does He 
command more than He enables us to perform? 
He says, l Be ye holy, for I am holy.' ' He that 
spared not His own Son, shall He not with Him, 
freely give us all things ? ' Without Him ' we can 
do nothing,' but we can ' do all things through Christ 
that strengthened us.' 4 Ask, and ye shall receive.' 
' He is more willing to give His Holy Spirit to 
those that ask, than we to give good gifts to our 
children.' ; Blessed are they that do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' 
4 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all 
wisdom.' ' I beseech you therefore, brethren, by 
the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is 
your reasonable service ; and be not conformed to 



198 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

this world : but be ye transformed by the renewing 
of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, 
and acceptable, and perfect will of God.' 4 Ye are 
bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your 
body and in your spirit which are God's. 5 ' Be ye 
therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 
perfect.' 

" It was my views that I was asked to. write. I 
view it both a duty and delight to be ' perfect in 
every good word and work,' through Christ our 
Great Perfection, and only in Him : out of Him our 
best righteousness is as filthy rags. Lord, great in 
goodness, good in greatness, help. 

" Though we're weak, He is mighty ; 

In His strength alone we go ; 
If we strive to walk uprightly, 

Every grace will He bestow. 
It is the Lord in whom we trust ; 

Of ourselves we're all unfitness ; 
In our God alone we boast." 

Behold this child ! Behold how the Lord has 
fashioned her in the image of His dear Son ! See 
in her His implicit confidence, His loving obedience,* 
His self-sacrificing love for the lost, His delight iti 
the will of the Father, in short, all the lines of His 
character in the beauties of holiness, with a perfeci? 
knowledge that her completeness is all in Christ, 



HOW IT CAME TO PASS. 199 

not at all in her own virtues, whether native-born or 
grace-given, all and only in Jesus. 

Behold, too, by what simple means the Lord has 
thus fashioned her, — simple but grand ! The 
Bible and the Church in the home, and the Holy 
Spirit in the heart, — glorious instrumentality ! 
The Word preached too in the little country school- 
house, together with the daily discipline of the daily 
life in the atmosphere of poverty and toil, enriched 
and hallowed by love. These, the instrumentalities, 
blessed the work. By the touch of His hand in 
these it is that the Lord has caused this little girl to 
become like a burning bush in the desert, in which 
He dwells, and out of which He shines and speaks. 
By these it is that He has made her to do yet more 
than the poor widow w T ho gave all the living that 
she had into His treasury ; has made her to bring 
rich revenues to Him out of the nothing possessed 
by her, — out of her toil, and out of stones, bushes, 
and trees. Marvelous work, all of God ! To Him 
be glory in the highest. 





8^111 




S 


^^^ 


/TTh 


IKS 




XVIII. 

THE BURNING BUSH. 

y|HE form in which it pleased the Lord to ap- 
^ pear to Moses, when He called him to be the 
deliverer of His people from bondage, was 
a beautiful symbol of the Christian in the power 
of the Spirit, — a burning bush$ burning yet not 
consumed. 

The Christian is in himself no more than a bush 
at best, and a crooked, thorny, gnarly one too : his 
glory and beauty and power are all in the Lord, who 
dwells in him. Some of us may be a little more 
crooked or scrubby than others, in ourselves. Some 
of you may be more like the palm of the tropics, 
graceful and flexible ; or like the pine of the forest, 
tall and stately ; or like the oak, spreading and 
strong : but the palm has no heavenly light in it- 
self, and the pine has knots at the heart, and the 
oak is as stubborn as it is strong. And besides this, 
I have no doubt that the glory of that bush was all 
the greater in the eyes of Moses because it was so 



THE BURNING BUSH. 201 

crooked, so gnarly, so thorny, and yet had in it such 
a fire. St. Paul says, " Most gladly will I rather 
glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ 
may rest upon me." And he says again, concern- 
ing Christ, that He a is made of God, unto us wis- 
dom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 
that according as it is written, let him that glorieth, 
glory in the Lord." The glory of the bush was 
Him who dwelt in it, and His glory shone the 
brighter because the bush was only a thorn. If any 
of us are by nature like the palm, or the pine, or the 
oak, and are glorying in ourselves, our glory will 
soon go to ashes. Nay, more, if we are glorying in 
any supposed perfection wrought in us, making us 
anything in which to glory, it will soon fade away ; or 
if we are glorying in any of the gifts, of God to us, 
peace, purity, light, love, or power, our glory will 
die out very quickly: the Lord, the Lord alone 
never fades or fails, and if our glorying is, in the 
Lord Himself, dwelling in us as He dwelt in the 
bush, and not at all in ourselves, our glory will never 
cease. 

There is a power in the. Christian in whom the 
Lord dwells, wonderfully arresting and strangely 
attracting to others. They see His brightness, His 
cheeriness, His shining, and are arrested by it ; and 
when they see that it does not grow dim, they begin 
to wonder about it, and say to themselves, " I will 



202 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

now turn aside and see this great sight, why the 
bush does not burn out." Then when they turn 
aside to see, their first word is apt to be, " I see 
that you have something that I have not What is 
it ? " 

The thing that arrests and attracts them is not 
that the bush is ablaze, but that it does not burn out. 
The secret they are after is the undying constancy 
of the fire in the bush. They understand very well 
that one may be at times all ablaze with the love of 
God in the soul, and may occasionally let his light 
so shine that it shall arrest others, and glorify God : 
they know this in their own experience, and they 
look back with delight upon such times in their own 
lives. But as they look back, there comes up a 
deep sigh : and what does that sigh mean ? Ah, its 
meaning is this : " Oh, that it might be always so 
with me ! But alas ! it is not. I wonder if it is so 
with anybody? " So when they find one, as they 
journey along, shining, and -shining on and on, it 
touches this question deep down in the fountain of 
sighs : "Whether there is, or can be, constancy of 
walking in the light? and if so what .the secret of it 
can be ? 

Moses must have been all ablaze when he made 
the great choice of his life, forsook the royal family 
of Egypt to become a mere Israelite, choosing afflic- 
tion with the people of God rather than the pleas- 



THE BURNING BUSH. 203 

ures of sin, and esteeming the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. And 
when he came among his own people, and took up 
in their behalf the sword of defence ancl of deliver- 
ance, the fire must have burned vehemently. But 
alas for him when he had killed the Egyptian, and 
found that it was known, and that Pharaoh was 
seeking him to put him to death ; his zeal was sud- 
denly quenched, and thereafter whatever light he 
had was hidden under a bushel, and under a bed 
away out in the wilderness. No wonder then that 
a bush burning, yet not consumed, arrested him, and 
attracted him. It was just what he himself sighed 
to be. It is just what thousands of real Christians 
sigh to be. 

The secret of the bush, why it did not burn out, 
was not long hidden from Moses. It will not be 
long hidden from any one who turns aside to see the 
sight, and to learn the secret. As he drew near, 
a voice came to him out of the bush, calling him by 
name, " Moses, Moses ! " to which he answered 
saying, " Here am I." 

Instantly he knew that the voice did not belong 
to the bush itself, yet it came to him out of the 
midst of the bush. If, then, his desire to examine 
the bush and the fire was intensified, and he was 
about to approach it more closely, he was instantly 
checked and awed by the words of authority which 



204 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

followed : " Draw not nigh hither : put off the shoes 
from off thy feet : for the place whereon thou stand- 
est is holy ground." 

The secret of the bush, why it did not burn out, 
was no longer a secret to Moses ; he understood it 
now ; God was in it. What made that a holy 
bush? Its own holiness in itself? No; but the 
holiness of Him who dwelt in it. What made the 
ground whereon Moses stood holy ground ? Holi- 
ness in itself? No, but the presence there of the 
Holy One. In what sense is holiness to the Lord 
inscribed on the Christian in whom God dwells, and 
out of whom He shines forth with a brightness that 
never grows dim ? Simply this, that he is set apart 
to the Lord, and the Lord abides in him. That is, 
he is wholly given up to the Lord as His abiding 
place. In this there is no room for the Christian to 
glory in himself. He is a gnarly, crooked thorn- 
bush at the best * or if he be by nature a palm, a 
pine, or an oak, he is no better than the thorn ; all 
the glory of the light belongs to the Lord in the 
bush ; not a particle of it to the bush itself. 

There is in the Christian in whom the Lord 
dwells a conquering power also, that would be mar- 
velous indeed if it did not all belong to Him who 
dwelt in the bush, and not to the Christian in him- 
self at all. Moses w r as conquered before the bush 
in a few moments. He was virtually conquered 



THE BURNING BUSH. 205 

when he stopped to look ; for when he saw the bush 
that it burned and yet was not consumed, the im- 
pulse was masterly in him to see why it was. And 
when the voice came to him out of the midst of the 
bush, that was kingly, and he obeyed it. When it 
said, " Draw not nigh hither," he obeyed. And when 
it said, " Put oif thy shoes," he did so. Such a 
bush is the Christian in whom the Holy One dwells, 
and by whom He shines and speaks. There is in 
him the Conquering One, with whom is all power on 
earth and in heaven. The power is in the Christian, 
yet does not inhere in him. It is in the Christian be- 
cause the Conquering One is in him, and the con- 
quering power inheres in the Conquering One Him- 
self. 

Such a bush was James Brainard Taylor to me, 
for, though dead, the Lord shone out of him upon me, 
and though in heaven, the Lord spoke out of his liv- 
ing testimony to me as I was in my daily work. The 
very instant I saw the light of his beautiful life in 
Christ and Christ in him, it arrested me, attracted 
me, and virtually conquered me. I knew the power 
and sweetness of being filled with the love of God ; 
•the joy of knowing Jesus was nothing new to mc ; 
but my life had become one of sighs on account of 
the inconstancy of the flame in me, and because of 
my despair that it would ever be otherwise. Not 
for want of pardon, or assurance, or complete re- 



208 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

lease from fear of death and the judgment ; all that 
I had. But oh, I was so tired of going over the 
same ground. So many times I had gone to Jesus 
and found Him, and thought I would never again 
lose Him or leave Him, and then the flame had so 
quickly burnt out ! So the moment I saw in the 
testimony of Taylor the better thing for which I 
sighed, my whole soul assented, saying, Yes, Lord ; 
shoes off ; face in the dust ; everything given up ; 
self abased — anything in the world, if I may only 
have the abiding fullness of Jesus. 

But just here I made a mistake which is a very 
frequent one, a mistake that kept me months from 
receiving Christ to dwell in me and make me like 
the burning bush. The mistake was this : I thought 
there must be a great change wrought in me before 
the Lord could abide in me continually. Or, to put 
it more accurately, I thought the thing itself was a 
change in its instead of being simply God in us. 
Had I seen at once that all I needed was to have 
God in me, and that all I had to do to have Him in 
me was to give myself up to Him and accept Him 
as given to me, on the strength of His own word, 
I should have been saved a long, long course of 
struggling and striving, and a hundred failures. 
For at last, after I had sought in vain, and in many 
ways, to secure the great change in myself that I 
supposed I must have, in a moment it was revealed 



THE BURNING BUSH. 207 

to mo that Christ in me and with me was the real 
thing I needed, and not the wonderful change in 
myself which I had been seeking, and that all I 
had to do was to give myself to Christ, and take 
Him to myself, and leave the work of purifying me 
to Him ; and when I saw this, my struggles were 
ended. I gave myself to Jesus, and took Him as 
my own ; or rather, He took me, and took up His 
abode in me. Then how could it be otherwise than 
that I should be all ablaze with Hi3 love and light ? 
I knew before 

" The joy of knowing Jesus/' 

but now I began to know the unbroken walk with 
Christ in the light, for I had Him who is the light 
abiding in me, and I in Him. Blessed walk 1 
Every step in the light ; or if, in any thoughtless 
moment, a misstep is made, the loving Leader's hand 
is put forth to draw one back into the light again, 
and then more steadily, trustfully, lovingly, than 
ever, the eye is fixed upon Him who is the light, to 
walk in Him, in Him alone to the end, 

There was in that bush a wonderful endowing 
power too, as well as a power to attract and con- 
quer. No, not in the bush at all, but in Him who 
dwelt in it. 

We are more easily conquered than endowed. 
Many a Christian will say, Yes, yes, yes, to every- 



208 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

thing God bids liim do in the matter of his own 
salvation, but will draw back and plead want of gifts 
when the Lord would send him to speak to others. 
Moses was ready enough to turn aside to see the 
great sight, and to stop and put off the shoes from 
his feet when bidden by Him who dwelt in the bush, 
but when it came to going back into Egypt, whence 
he had fled a refugee, and taking up the great work 
he had given up, and becoming a deliverer — the 
deliverer of his people ; going to the elders of 
Israel and to the king of Egypt — ah ! that was 
more than he could undertake. He drew back from 
it and plead in the most reasonable way in the 
w r orld, his lack of eloquence. What ! he, Moses, 
do all this ? No, he never had the gift of speaking. 
No, never ; and now that the Lord had spoken to him 
and had assured him that He would be with him 
and with his mouth — even now he had no con- 
sciousness of having received the gift; he felt just 
as slow of speech as ever. Oh, Moses, Moses, how 
like the rest of us wert thou ! 

Yet the endowment w r as there, there for Moses. 
God was the endowment. But Moses onlycon- 
santed to be endowed in part. He took God as 
his endowment for leadership, but refused Him as 
his endowment for speech. Oh, Moses, Moses, how 
patiently, gently, tenderly, thy God dealt with thee ! 
He offered thee Himself to be thy endowment as 



THE BURNING BUSH. 209 

His prophet, His priest, His king, a full type of 
the Son of God in all His offices. Thou didst refuse 
Him in the two great offices of prophet and priest, 
and He did not reject thee, but still accepted thee 
and made thee the ruler of His people. Yes, and 
He made thee a prophet in spite of thyself; a 
prophet greatest of all save only the Son of God 
Himself, and thou didst assent to it at last, notwith- 
standing thy slowness of speech. Thine own "words 
show it, when thou didst speak of Christ, saying, 
" A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto 
you like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things." 

Why is it that w T e ever shrink from anything, 
however great, to which we are called by Him who 
dwelt in the bush ? Why do we ever plead lack of 
the gift for any word or work He lays upon us ? 
Simply because we look at ourselves instead of 
Him. We want a conscious power in ourselves in- 
stead of a promised power in Him. Our real want 
is to have the Lord Himself, in whom dwells all 
power, with us, to be the excellency of the power for 
every word and work given us to speak or do. We 
may be as powerless in ourselves as the bush, but 
if He dwells in us, and speaks out of the midst of 
the bush, there will be no lack of power. 

Few men since the world began have been 
stronger in themselves than Moses was. He w r as a 
great man, a learned man, a hero ; yet when he un- 



210 IN THE POWER. OF THE SPIRIT 

dertook in his own strength to deliver his people, he 
very soon abandoned it and fled to the wilderness, 
and there remained forty years ; and there he would 
have remained, a keeper of his father-in-law's sheep 
until he died, if. God had not called him at the bush. 
But there he learned the true secret of power: that 
power belongs to God, and that God with us is our 
power. And from that bush he went forth trusting 
alone in Him to whom power belongs ; and from 
that hour everything and everybody gave way be- 
fore him. Oh, how wonderful the contrast between 
Moses before the scene, and Moses after the scene 
at the bush ! The contrast between Peter before 
the day of Pentecost, when he denied his Lord with 
oaths and curses, afraid of a servant-maid and ser- 
vant-man, and after Pentecost, when all the threats 
of the Sanhedrim and high-priest could not move 
him a hair or silence him a moment, is not more 
wonderfuL Well might it be so, however. He who 
made the difference before and after is wonderful. 
Neither Moses nor Peter are anything in themselves 
to do the work which God alone can do. The poor' 
knotty, gnarly, crooked thorn-bush had as much 
power to do God's work as the greatest man that 
ever lived, and that is just none at all ; but any one, 
great or small, in whom God dwells, and by whom 
He works and speaks, has for God's work all the 
power of God. 



THE B URN1NG B USE. 2 1 1 

How meek, too, it makes one ! How gentle ! 
How lowly ! How self-sacrificing ! How loving ! 
Moses was impetuous and imperious. He ran be- 
fore he was sent ; slew a man against law out of the 
fire of his own temper; was offended because his 
own people d ; d not accept him at once as their de- 
liverer, and then fled in fear for his own life. But 
when He who dwelt in the bush took possession of 
him, oh, how changed ! Nothing daunted, yet noth- 
ing offended him. Over and over again, when his 
people rebelled, and God would have destroyed 
them and would have made of him a great nation, he 
threw himself into the gap and made up the hedge, 
preferring to die with his people rather than have 
them destroyed. Only once during the forty years 
of amazing provocations did he offend. There is 
One only who was spotless. But oh how like that 
One did Moses become through the indwelling of 
that One in him ! 

And may we not trace even that one unadvised 
use of his lips, to the final refusal there at the bush 
by Moses to give up his lips entirely to the Lord ? 
Whether this be so or not, it will be entirely safe 
and wonderfully wise for us to yield our lips to the 
Lord, and not refuse to speak any word, at any time, 
in any place, to anybody, when He bids us. 
15 




XIX. 




FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 

jf?| GLANCE at the map reveals a much nearer 
and easier route from Egypt to Canaan than 
the one by which the Lord led His people. 
Left to themselves, Moses and the Israelites never 
would have gone by the Red Sea, Sinai, the Wilder- 
ness of Sin, and then back to Sinai, and up around 
Edom into Moab, and across the Jordan. They 
would, no doubt, have chosen the Gaza route. That 
leads immediately around the southeastern bend of 
the Mediterranean, north into Canaan at the Philis- 
tine border, and the whole journey could then have 
been accomplished by them in a few days without the 
immense difficulties and tedious delays of the other 
route. ■ It was by that way, no doubt, that the travel- 
ling traders to whom Joseph was sold by his brethren 
took him down into Egypt, and by which his breth- 
ren went back and forth, when sent by Jacob their 
father to buy corn, and by which Jacob finally jour- 
neyed with all his household to Egypt at the invita- 
tion of Joseph and the king. 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 213 

We know that the eunuch, treasurer of Queen 
Candace, was returning in his chariot along that 
route, from Jerusalem through Egypt into Ethiopia, 
when Philip was sent to preach Christ unto him, 
and that travellers a hundred to one journeyed back 
and forth between Egypt and Canaan by that way. 

Why then did the Lord choose the way of the 
Red Sea, Sinai, the Wilderness, and the Jordan ? 

There were two excellent reasons for His choice. 
One was to prevent the return of His people into 
Egypt, and the other was to prepare them to con- 
quer Canaan, and to dwell in it forever. 

TO PREVENT THEIR RETURN INTO EGYPT. 

They needed not only the thorough break which 
actually occurred between them and the Egyptians 
when they went out, but also a Red Sea experience 
to separate them from Egypt. As it was, their 
hearts turned back into Egypt every time they met 
any new difficulty in the way, and when at the end 
of the first year they came to Kadesh-Barnea, with 
nothing between them and the land but an invisible 
line, they, instead of stepping over and taking pos- 
session, stopped, and sent over spies ; and then at 
the report of the spies their hearts failed them ; 
and they rebelled, and determined to kill Moses and 
Aaron, put other leaders in their place, and go back 
again into Egypt ; and then the Lord would have 
destroyed them, but for the interposition of Moses 



214 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

and Aaron ; and as it was, He sentenced them to 
life in the Wilderness until all the unbelieving ones 
should die off. 

From these facts we see the justness of the rea- 
son given by the Lord Himself for not leading them 
by the Gaza route, though, as He says, " that was 
near ; " for, said He, " lest peradventure the people 
repent when they see war, and they return into 
Egypt." 

Many a time have I wondered why I was led out 
of Satan's bondage into the liberty of the gospel 
by the long, roundabout, hard way, and not directly 
by the short, easy way. Here, however, is the 
mirror of it, and here is the reason for it, one reason 
at least, though not the only one. 

Ah ! yes, they needed a Red Sea and a terrible 
Wilderness and a Jordan between them and Egypt, 
to keep them from repenting and returning, not one 
whit more than I did. The world was wonderfully 
attractive to me. Self-indulgence in Egypt, over 
against enduring hardness as a good soldier of 
Christ, looked amazingly fascinating. Others may 
not need these experiences as a gulf between 
them and the world, but I am sure I did ; and I 
thank God on this account for the way, and for all 
the way in which He has led me. 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 215 

TO PREPARE THEM TO DWELL IN THE LAND. 

The Lord had for His people a glory in store of 
which they had no conception when He called them 
out of Egypt, and that was to make them what He 
made Moses to them, a burning bush in the Wilder- 
ness. They were to become the light of the world, 
a candle on its candlestick, a city set on a hill 
which cannot be hid. The Lord was to make them 
among the nations, a bush aflame with His own 
presence, a tabernacle covered and filled with His 
glory, so that all the world should, when they looked 
up, turn aside to see this great sight. He was to 
make them as a nation just what He makes every 
one of His children who will receive the pentecostal 
gift, His own temple amongst men. Therefore it 
was that the glory of Egypt must be abased and 
turned into corruption in the sight of Israel, and 
the glory of God shown forth by judgments and 
wonders, which should take all the glitter out of 
Egypt, and put a halo around the name of God for- 
ever. 

Therefore, too, the passover must be observed. 
The blood of the Lamb must be seen to be the price 
of their redemption, and the token of their salva- 
tion, and the flesh of the Lamb must be shown to 
be their sustenance all the journey through to their 
journey's end, yea, and forever. It was to be for- 



216 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

ever upon the lintel and the posts of their doors, 
and upon their hands, and upon their brow as the 
token ever kept in front, that they were redeemed 
by the precious blood as of a lamb that was slain 
from before the foundation of the world, but who 
was to reign forever and ever in the midst of the 
throne in their hearts. 

Therefore it was that they were baptized unto 
Moses in the sea ; and ate of the manna in the 
Wilderness, and drank of the Rock, Christ ; and 
were brought under the power of the law at Sinai ; 
and w T ere taught and trained in the worship and 
fellowship of God in connection with the tabernacle, 
and were led about and humbled, and made hungry ; 
and led at last through the conquests of Sihon and 
Og, with their cities and riches, before being led 
into the land ; and then were brought to the Jordan 
at the precise time in all the year when it overflows 
its banks, and taken across it upon its dry bed 
while its waters above stood on a heap, and flowed 
back far away up the valley. 

All this, and all the judgments and mercies by 
the way were necessary to destroy in the heart of 
the nation their inbred self-life, self-indulgence, self- 
will, self-esteem, self-righteousness, self-dependence, 
self-complacency, and to bring them to accept the 
Lord as their life, and power, and strength, and 
glory. 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 217 

THE USUAL COURSE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

In all this I see my own experience wonderfully 
foreshown. Looking back over all the way in which 
the Lord has led me T see at every step two things, 
my own shame, and God's glory. When I look at 
my part in it I see murmurs and fears and rebel- 
lions, bitter complaints, and shameful wanderings, 
all the way till I reached the land ; but when I 
look at God's part I see the whole route from Egypt 
to Canaan ablaze with His glory, His patience, 
forbearance, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and 
love. Yes, and in the land He is all the glory of it. 
Oh ! how it shines. Oh ! how my heart melts at 
the thought of it. Yes, I see the wondrous love of 
God in the blood of the Lamb, upon the forefront 
of all ; and I see the power of the Lamb in the 
parting of the waters of darkness at the Red Sea; 
and I see the Bread of Life, angels' food, in the 
manna by the way ; and I see the Angel of Life in 
the pillar of cloud and of fire by which I was led 
and protected on the journey ; and I see my glorious 
Schoolmaster, Christ, in the law, by which He led 
me to Himself, my glorious Bridegroom ; and I see 
my glorious wedlock with Him entered into, in the 
passage of the Jordan into the land at last. 

Yes, and from all I see and hear from others I 
see that this, too, is the usual course of Christian 



218 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

experience. If in any case, and alas, the cases are 
many, the Jordan has not been reached yet, and 
they are saying to themselves it never will be 
reached until death, this simply shows that the Lord 
has not yet brought them thus far. And if they 
speak harshly, censoriously of others who are in 
tha land, I can heartily say, with the kind colored 
woman who heard such things, u The Lord He 
habent teached'emyet." No, but He will. They 
will yet see and know the truth for themselves. 

Here- let me say, it seems to me that there are at 
this time an unusual number, especially in our own 
country, who have been brought along out of the 
stand-still position in the Wilderness of Sin, and are 
in the line of successive victories still, on the Bashan 
side of the Jordan. They are hard at work, sub- 
duing Sihon and Og, and this w T ork they are more 
than half inclined to exalt in the place of the 
Saviour. Their cry is, " Go to work, and your 
sins will cease to trouble you." Their panacea 
for all spiritual ailments is work, and their hope for 
the salvation of men is work, and the glory of 
their life is work. But the Lord will soon bring 
them face to face with the Jordan in its flood, and 
there He will teach them that it is not in man's 
work, but in God's power, that all virtue and all 
hope is to be found. Then they too will take the 
wedding ring presented by the Bridegroom, and 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 219 

step with Him to the altar, and be made one with 
Him forever. They have sprinkled their frontlets 
with the blood of the Lamb ; they have been 
gloriously brought through the Red Sea ; they have 
passed under the schooling of the law ; they have 
risen from the position of a truce with the enemy 
into which they fell back from Kadesh-Barnea, and 
they are eagerly working away now in Bashan ; and 
I am sure they will be soon brought up at the Jordan, 
and will there be taught the grand secret of perpet- 
ual conquest by abiding union with Him who is the 
Overcoming One. This is the usual course of 
Christian experience. There are, however, 

UNUSUAL WAYS. 

The Lord has various routes, but not a single rut, 
for His people. 

The Gaza way is not a wholly untravelled one by 
those whom the Lord leads from Egypt to Canaan. 

Such records as those of Isaac among the patri- 
archs, and of Samuel and John the Baptist among 
the prophets, have their counterpart amongst Chris- 
tians in every age. And yet these are the few 
among the many. Of John the Baptist we are told 
that he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his 
birth, and being filled with the Holy Ghost is coming 
into the land, being wedded to Christ, receiving the 
pentecostal gift. Of Samuel we know that while 



220 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

yet a child the Lord made him a great prophet, and 
allowed none of his words to fall to the ground. 
Isaac's life, too, is free from the decisive Red Sea 
struggle w T hich we see in Jacob's experience at 
Bethel, and from the Jordan wrestling of Jacob at 
Peniel, where his name ceased to be Jacob and 
became Israel, prince of God, with power for the 
conquering life : free, too, from such crises as we 
see in the life of his father, Abraham, yet the 
measure of his faith, when tried side by side with 
that of his father, lacked nothing. In Abraham's 
great trial Isaac's faith went with him. It is written, 
" They went on both of them together." If Abra- 
ham carried the fire and the knife, Isaac carried 
the fagots, and was the lamb for the sacrifice. He 
knew it, too, yet no murmur escaped his lips. He 
must have known it when his father bound him, and 
raised the knife to slay him. Yes, he knew it all the 
while, yet no movement of resistance was made by 
him. His will went with his father's will in the will 
of God, and if his father was a beautiful type of 
the Father, in the great sacrifice of the Son, so was 
Isaac also of the Son, in the offering up of himself. 
These, however, are rare examples, unusual gems 
in the sacred history, more Christ-like than the rest 
of us in this very thing, that they never seem to 
have been wedded to the world or set upon having 
their own way, but to have been in union with the 
Lord from birth. 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 221 

Others there are who have to be led out of Egypt 
by the Red Sea, but who, when brought to Kadesh- 
Barnea, do not back down before the giants in the 
land, but step over and go in and possess the land, 
without an intervening truce in the Wilderness, with 
its hungerings and humblings. 

These, however, are not the many, but the few ; 
enough to exemplify the fact that the Lord has 
various ways for His people. 

Two things only are essential : the escape from 
Egypt, and the entrance into the land. These 
secured, it matters little about the experiences in 
the way, whether or not they be signal. To be out 
of Egypt was the great thing for Israel before their 
deliverance, and to be in the land was the great 
thing when they were in the Wilderness. To be 
out from under Satan's yoke of bondage to the 
world is the first great thing for him who would be 
saved ; and to be in Christ in perfect liberty and 
peace is the great thing for the Christian. Partic- 
ular experiences are very pleasant to think of, but 
they are not essential to salvation. Let no one 
hesitate a moment to trust Christ entirely because 
he has not had this or that experience corresponding 
to what is usual amongst his fellow-Christians. Nor 
let any one judge his fellow-Christian because the 
Lord has not led him to pass through the Red Sea, 
or the Jordan, by an experience signal as his own. 



222 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

There are some of us who need breaking down and 
breaking up more signally than others. These 
signal experiences are evidences of signal resist- 
ances. 

EVERY VICTORY IS BY SURRENDER. 

Surrender to whom ? To the enemy ? No, but 
to Christ. Surrender, if it be to the enemy, is 
defeat ; if to Christ, it is victory. Our part in this 
whole matter, from first to last, is that of resistance 
until we yield, and yielding is surrender ; and when 
we have surrendered to Him, then our part is to 
live on in perpetual surrender to Him. Even in 
glory we are, as it were, the captives of love, the 
glorified, redeemed ones, whose glory is all in their 
Redeemer. To give up and let all go into the hands 
of Christ is victory. This was the victory of Moses 
when he gave up Egypt, and chose the afflictions of 
the people of God rather than the pleasures of 
sin. And this was his victory again at the bush, 
when he yielded to Him who dwelt in it. So was it 
the victory of Israel in Egypt, and at the Red Sea, 
and at the Jordan. On the other hand, to give up 
and let all go into the hands of the enemy is defeat. 
This was the defeat of Moses when he fled to the 
Wilderness, and of Israel when, for fear of the 
giants, they refused to go on into the land at Ka- 
desh-Barnea. And this is the defeat in which 
thousands of Christians are living to-day who are 



FROM EGYPT TO CANAAN. 223 

saying to themselves, il Ah ! my temper or temper- 
ament ; ah ! my besetting sins and untoward circum- 
stances. I can never overcome them in this world." 
Yet w r hat is there between them and the over- 
coming power ? Nothing but their own unbelief or 
unwillingness to surrender to Christ. Let them 
give up, and let all go into the hands of the Over- 
coming One, and the conquering position is theirs. 




XX. 

ACROSS THE JORDAN — MOSES DEAD. 

5^ HE type would have been imperfect if the 
^11 Lord had not taken Moses away, and put 
Joshua in the lead of His people before they 
entered the promised land. That is one of the 
things He always does with every one of His 
children in bringing them into rest. Moses must 
die. He represents the law. Joshua must be put 
in his place. He represents grace. The name 
Joshua is identical with Jesus, and means Sav- 
iour. The law is no Saviour. It shows us our 
need of salvation, but never bestows it upon us. 
It can bring us to the brink of the Jordan, but 
it cannot take us over into the land. It can take 
us up to the top of Mount Nebo, and show us the 
goodly land of milk and honey, oil and wine, with 
its vine-clad hills and valleys of green ; but there 
it must die, and God must bury it. Grace alone 
can open the waters before us, and lead us over, 
and put us in possession of the unspeakable things 
God has in store for us. The law can make us 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 225 

feel as deeply as the man under the law in the 
seventh of Romans, what we ought to be and what 
we ought to do, and what we ought not to be and 
ought not to do. But the gospel alone can lead us 
into the knowledge of what Christ is for us and to 
us, and this is just the difference between the two. 
The law fixes our thoughts on ourselves ; the gospel 
fills us with Christ. Hence, the law must die out 
that Christ may live in us. 

This is what happens on the death-bed in so many 
instances. All hope of making one's self w T hat one 
ought to be to meet the requirements of the law is 
forsaken, and our case is given up to Jesus entirely, 
and immediately, there on the death-bed, one is led 
into perfect rest in Christ, with a sweet foretaste of 
the rest above. 

And this is just what takes place long before the 
time of death, in those who come to a like position 
of mind, and give themselves wholly over into the 
hands of Jesus to be led by Him. 

Death was the Jordan to those Israelites who 
through unbelief gave up all hope of taking pos- 
session of Canaan while they lived, and so fell back 
from Kadesh-Barnea into the Wilderness of Sin. 
And heaven was their rest ; but their children 
crossed the Jordan and came into the rest which 
remained for them, long, long before they died. 
These two classes represent the two classes of 



226 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Christians : those who look for no deliverance until 
death, and those who accept deliverance long before 
death. 

SIHOiSr AND OG DEAD. 

The Lord wants us to enter the land, leaving no 
enemies in the rear. Sihon and Og, if left in power 
in their strongholds, could have struck heavy blows 
against Israel from their side in aid of the inhabitants 
of the land on the other side, and they could have 
given refuge to whole armies in the giant cities of 
Bashan. But dead, they could strike no blows, and 
their cities, taken and occupied by Israelites, were 
no places of security for their foes. 

Prominent sins, such as come squarely out in the 
Christian's pathway when he sets his face for the 
land of deliverance, must be put to death before he 
can cross the Jordan. 

Moreover, God often gives those He is leading 
out specific victories over special things in the way, 
not merely to get those things out of the w T ay, but as 
foretastes of conquest before He brings them through 
into the land, and puts them in full possession of the 
secret of the conquering life. Many a one can point 
to specific victories in which, through simple faith 
in Jesus, particular besetments have been killed as 
dead as Og and Sihon ; not merely brought under, 
but put to death. And this is a great encouragement 
to look for the general victory, and for the key to a 
life of continual conquest. 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 227 

THE LAND SPIED OUT. 

As at Kadesh-Barnea, so again at the Jordan, 
spies were sent over into the land, and returned 
again to camp. These last fared worse than the 
first set, brought no fruits back, and had to escape 
for their own lives out of the land. Yet they saw 
the cities and the country, and were charmed, and 
had no fear but that God would give it to Israel 
according to His promise. And the people were 
not alarmed by their report, but accepted it, and 
were ready to go forward in the face of all the giants 
and strongholds of the land. 

THE PEOPLE SURRENDERED. 

That is, they gave all up, not to return as their 
fathers had done, and leave the land in possession of 
their enemies, but they gave all up to the Lord, to 
let Him lead them wherever He would, and do with 
•them whatever He pleased, and to do themselves 
whatever He should make known to them as His 
will. 

The surrender was unconditional ; their words to 
Joshua were, " All that thou commandest us we will 
do, and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go." 

THE PROMISE ACCEPTED. 

The Lord gave Joshua, as head of the people, a 
promise covering the whole land " from the wilder- 
16 



228 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

ness (on the south) to Lebanon (on the north), and 
from the Euphrates (on the east) unto the great sea 
toward the going down of the sun ; and said, " Every 
place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that 
have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. There 
shall not a man be able to stand before thee all the 
days of thy life ; as I was with Moses, so I will be 
with thee ; I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be 
strong and of a good courage." With the promise the 
Lord emphasized the encouragement to accept it and 
stand in it, by repeating it a second, yea, and a third 
time, showing that He knew where the failure would 
come, if it should come. Unbelief is the great 
weakness, as well as the great sin. The one sin of 
which the Comforter reproves the whole world is 
that of unbelief: " Of sin, because they believe not 
on me," said our Saviour ; and the one weakness at 
the fountain-head of failure is unbelief. Israel failed 
of the rest at Kadesh-Barnea through unbelief ; and 
by faith they entered in across the Jordan. Many 
a one has said with Israel, " All that thou com- 
mandest us we will do, and wheresoever thou sendest 
us we will go," and made the surrender uncon- 
ditional to do the will of God, but has come short of 
accepting the promise and venturing all upon it, and 
so has failed. Not so Israel at the Jordan. They 
reiterated the words of encouragement in the words 
of the Lord to Joshua, and put themselves under 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 229 

pledges of death to all who should not obey, saying, 
M Only be strong and of a good courage." 

THE WAY UNKNOWN TO THE PEOPLE. 

Surrendered as the people were to the Lord, and 
trustful in Him, He took good care that they 
should not go forward in any way of their own. 
He always leads us by a way that we know not ; our 
failures come more frequently from thinking that 
we know the way, before He has shown it to us, 
than from an unwillingness to walk in the way when 
He makes it known. The Lord put the ark in the 
forefront at the head of the column, to guide them ; 
and to make sure that they should not rush blindly 
on and fail to discern the way Ho was showing 
them, He put the space of two thousand cubits be- 
tween the ark and the people, and charged them 
saying, " Come not near unto it, that ye may know 
the way ye must go ; for ye have not passed this 
way heretofore." 

Few things are more frequent in our work of 
guiding others into full trust, than the overstepping 
eagerness of those who do not wait to have the way 
shown to them, but rush on in some w T ay of their 
own, and so fail of the Lord's Way. Deliberate fol- 
lowing, with one's eyes not fixed on himself, but on 
Jesus ; not turning this way and that, but steadily 
watching his Leader, is indispensable to safe conduct 
in the way. 



230 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 
THE WATERS NOT CUT OFF BEFOREHAND. 

The promise was that the waters of the Jordan 
should be cut off when they came where their feet 
touched the brim. They were to go deliberately 
forward out of their camp, onward to the water's 
edge, while the river in its annual time of swelling 
still rolled on as if to roll on forever ; they were to 
march to the brink precisely as they would have 
done if the waters had been cut off and the bottom 
laid bare for them to march over it ; and* when they 
came to the brim of the waters, and the priests with 
the ark dipped their feet in the waters, then were 
they to be cut off, and then were they cut off, and 
the glorious power of their Leader was seen. 

Here again is a mirror of numerous failures. In- 
stead of going deliberately forward in the face of 
unremoved difficulties, trusting in the Lord to cut 
off the waters when they are reached, the eye is 
fixed on the waters, and not on the Leader ; and 
though the Leader may move forward, He is not 
followed, because the eye is not upon Him as He 
moves, but upon the waters not cut off. In this way 
the waters never would be reached, and never 
would be cut off. The old adage that " A bridge 
cannot be passed until you come to it " is in point. 
Our trust, to be good for anything, must be placed 
not upon already removed difficulties, but upon the 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 231 

Lord, who can remove them when reached: If we 
wait to see the waters of difficulty cut off before we 
set out, we shall never come into the land ; but if 
we are strong in the Lord, and of a good courage, 
and venture forward, stepping out on the strength 
of His word, then shall w r e find what Israel did, 
that the waters are cut off and do flow back, and 
stand as an heap and cannot overflow us. The 
deeper and broader and higher they are, the greater 
the glory will be to our God, and the greater the 
joy will be to our souls. 

THE DOUBLE SET OF MEMORIAL STONES. 

That was the grave of the old wilderness life of 
Israel, that trough in the Jordan ; and from thence 
they went up out of the tomb, in the power of a 
conquering life in the land. The Lord therefore 
kept His ark standing in the midst of the river-bed 
until all the people came down to it and passed up 
from it. And He caused twelve men, representatives 
of the twelve tribes, to set up twelve stones, one for 
each tribe, there in the river-bed, as the tombstones of 
their unbelief, and to take out thence twelve stones 
into the land and set them up as the memorial of 
their conquering life upon which they now entered. 
As if He had said unto them, as St. Paul did to the 
Romans, u Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead in- 
deed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus 



232 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Christ our Lord," and then added, " Set up grave 
stones in memoriam of yourselves as dead to your self- 
life, and also others in token of your resurrection 
to God in Christ Jesus by faith in His name." 

Oh, how thoroughly the Lord led them, step by 
step, when they gave themselves up to His leader- 
ship ! First, to surrender themselves entirely to 
obey and to follow Him in a way they knew not, 
and to accept His word of promise, while yet every 
difficulty remained in the way ; then, to go forward, 
deliberately looking to Him alone, making sure 
that they were following Him in the way He led 
them ; to go right on up to the waters rolling on in full 
tide ; then to go down under the overhanging wall 
of water, and then attend their own funeral and set 
up their own gravestones in the middle of the river ; 
and then to take from the same spot the memorial 
stones of a life now separated wholly to God and 
given up to His leadership forever, and set them 
up in the land to be seen by all future generations. 

THE REPROACH OF EGYPT ROLLED OFF. 

No sooner were the people encamped in the land, 
than the old symbol of the cutting off of the flesh, cir- 
cumcision, was renewed, and that with a special sig- 
nificance as the token of an entire separation from 
the old life in Egypt. Oh how long the process had 
been ! How patiently the Lord had led them ! 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 233 

How wisely He had dealt with them ! How won- 
derfully He had taught them ! How gloriously He 
had wrought His wonders for them in Egypt, at the 
Red Sea, in tlfe wilderness, and now at the Jordan ! 
And now they were in the land. So, first of all, He 
had them roll off the reproach of Egypt, by the sign 
of circumcision. This to them was also a sharp 
reminder that in themselves dwelt no good thing ; 
that whatever else the Lord had done for them He 
had not hallowed them in themselves, but had hal- 
lowed Himself in them ; and that their goodness was 
all in their Saviour, and not in themselves at all. 

THE FRONTLET TOKEN RENEWED. 

One thing more remained to be done. The pass- 
over must be kept. The blood of the Lamb must be 
sprinkled anew upon doorposts and lintel, in token 
that He who redeemed them by His blood also pre- 
served them by His power ; and the flesh of the 
Lamb must be eaten, in recognition of the fact that 
He who was their life and sustenance in the escape 
from their bondage would be the same in the con- 
quering career upon which they were now fully to 
enter. 

Without the blood of the Lamb there could be 
no redemption from the bondage of Satan, and with- 
out tho blood of the Lamb there could be no con- 
quering power. It is the blood of the Lamb and 



234 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIEIT. 

the word of their testimony by which those in white 
robes before the throne overcame. There is no 
overcoming power but that which is in the Lamb 
that was slain from before the foundation of the 
world, to redeem us to God, and that is ours only 
by faith. Wherefore it is the frontlet token, to be 
kept in our brow forever and ever. 

As the altar was in front of the Tabernacle and 
Temple, and must be passed in getting to the laver, 
and to the Holy place and to the Holy of Holies, 
so must the slain Lamb of God be ever before us in 
the beginning, middle, and ending of every step of 
progress, and of every stage of life. 

THE CONQUEST. 

The promise to Israel was that " The Lord thy 
God He will go over beforo thee, and He will 
destroy these nations from before thee." It was 
not by their own strength or valor, but by the arm 
of the Lord. Over and over again they were told 
that " The Lord, He it is that doth go before thee ; 
He will be with thee." 

Relying on His promise they went forward, and 
" there failed not aught of any good thing which the 
Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel ; all came 
to pass." Not one of all their enemies could stand 
before them ; they went on " conquering and to 
conquer " so rapidly, that every little while they 



ACROSS THE JORDAN. 235 

had to stop and take breath, and in an incredibly 
short space of time thirty-and-one kings were 
smitten before Israel, and their cities and lands 
were possessed. 

One thing in the conquering career of Israel in 
the land is of special significance to us. 

THE CONQUEROR WAS INVISIBLE. 

In the wilderness the Lord led His people in vis- 
ible presence in the pillar of cloud and of fire, but 
in the land He was in them in spirit, not with them 
in a cloud. Neither had they any base of supplies, 
nor any need of the manna. Their daily conquests 
gave them abundance of corn. While they were 
making no conquests it was needful that the manna 
should be given, but the next day after their en- 
trance into the land, they ate of the old corn, and 
the manna ceased. 

When Christ was with His disciples in the body 
they were daily fed by Him as fully as they could 
bear ; but when He came to them, and dwelt in them 
in Spirit, they were enlarged and strengthened, fed 
and filled, in a way altogether more glorious. 
Thenceforth He was in them to illuminate and to 
guide, to strengthen and to lead them. Then be- 
gan their conquering life, and thenceforward they 
w r ere led forward in conquests greater and more 
numerous than those of Israel in the land. They 



236 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

were in the power of the Spirit, as Christ had been 
before them. And this is our own high vantage 
ground ; our Leader is the invisible Conqueror, who 
has all power in heaven and on earth, and if we 
are in Him, we are also in the power of the Spirit. 




XXI, 



IN THE LAND. 



One day a dear brother came to me saying, " I 
am puzzled. I wonder if you can help me ? " 
" What is your puzzle ? " . 
u My own mistakes and imperfections." 
" What is there to puzzle you in these ? " 
" I do not see how to reconcile them with the idea 
of completeness in Christ, which I accept by faith." 
I was about to try and disentangle the skein for 
him, but we were interrupted, and had no oppor- 
tunity for further conversation until the next day. 
There were meetings in progress, and in one of these 
I spoke of the history of Israel, as a type of 
Christian life in its various stages, but followed out 
the analogy no farther than the crossing of the 
Jordan ; so when on the following day an opportunity 
occurred, my friend came with another puzzle. Said 
he, " What do you make of the life of Israel in the 
land ? I can see my own escape from the bondage 
of Satan, in their deliverance from Egypt, and my 
own life of wanderings — now full of joy, now of 



238 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

sorrow, now of light; now of darkness, sometimes in 
God's will and sometimes in my own — in their life 
in the wilderness : I can see my entrance into rest 
by faith in Jesus, in their entrance into the land. 
So far all is plain ; but now comes the puzzle. 
What do you do with all their blunders and imper- 
fections after they were in the land ? There is the 
sin of Achan, the defeat before Ai, and the entan- 
glement with the Gibeonites, and the rest : how do 
they accord with the Christian life in full union 
with Jesus ? " 

This brought us to the very point where we were 
when broken off in our conversation the previous day* 
The two puzzles were perfectly parallel, thus : — 

The mistakes and imperfections of the Christian 
in full trust. 

The mistakes and imperfections of Israel in the 
land. 

Plainly the two puzzles are one, and their solution 
one. My beloved brother had made the most 
natural mistake in the world. He had apprehended 
his own completeness in ChrUt, and the deliverance 
was so great from his previous deep sense of his 
incompleteness, that he came very naturally to the 
conclusion that he was now complete in himself 
through faich in Christ. But having a perfect 
Saviour, and being perfect one's self, are two very 
different things. When Israel crossed the Jordan, 



IN THE LAND. 239 

they rolled off the reproach of Egypt behind them, 
and rose above the fear of Canaan before them : but 
it did not follow that the sons of Anak were all dead, 
and their high-walled cities laid flat, because Israel 
was raised above the fear of them. The conquest 
was assured to them, and they had accepted it as 
certainly to be given them, and God had sealed to 
them His promise, by opening to them a way through 
tho Jordan. He told them that the whole land was 
theirs, and that every place whereon they should 
set tho soles of their feet should be possessed by 
them, and not a man should be able to stand before 
them all the days of their life ; and they believed Him, 
and went forward into the land, and He cut off the 
waters before them, and led them through, dry shod, 
into the land. They were conquerors and more 
than conquerors already by faith ; they had an abun- 
dant entrance ministered unto them into their earthly 
Canaan, but they had not yet slain a single one of 
the giants of the land, or taken a single city. The 
whole land w r as theirs, and they were in it ; but 
every city and every king had to be conquered in 
detail. 

They were also in possession of the key to a 
perfect conquest. Yet their conquest was not even 
begun, much less finished. They had simply come 
into the conquering position. 

That is precisely what the Christian comes into 



240 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

when he comes up out of the wilderness wanderings 
into full and abiding union with Jesus. He has 
come into the conquering position ; his is a conquer- 
ing life begun, not a conquest completed ; he is in 
Christ the conquering one, and in Him he is complete 
for the conquest ; a very different thing from either 
being complete in himself, or having a completed 
conquest. 

This then is the one solution of the two puzzles, 

A CONQUERING LIFE BEGUN. 

Viewed in this light we shall easily understand 
the mistakes and imperfections of life in the land. 

In the very outset we see at a glance that they 
are mistakes and imperfections of life in the land, 
not out of it. They do not belong at all to the wil- 
derness life, — the life of truce with our enemies, 
leaving them in peaceable possession of the land, 
while we through unbelief are afraid to face them, — 
not a bit of it : much less do they belong to the 
Egyptian slave life under the yoke of Satan. And 
we see further that they all belong to a conquering 
life, not to a life of defeat. We run on into them 
through eagerness to go forward, and do not fall 
back into them through fear of trying to advance. 

Take, for example, the sin of Achan: that never 
could have been committed except in the moment of 
victory, In the time of defeat there is nothing to 



IN THE LAND. 241 

steal. Spoils can only be taken in the hour of con- 
quest. Achan says in his confession, " When I saw 
among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and 
two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold 
of fifty shekels' weight, then I coveted them, and 
took them ; and, behold, they are hid in the earth 
in the midst of my tent." " When I saw among 
the spoils" — yes, such things are seen only among 
spoils, and spoils belong only to the hour of victory. 
Ah ! when a glorious victory has been won, and 
rich spoils have been taken, all of which belong to 
the Lord, happy for us if then we do not plume our- 
selves with vanity as foolish as a Babylonish gar- 
ment, even if we do not dare to put it on in the 
sight of others ; happy for us if we do not covet, and 
take, too, even if we have to hide it in our hearts or 
in our own tents, the silver and the gold, to enrich 
ourselves in our own esteem. Happy for us, too, 
if God searches it out, and brings it out to light for 
us, and we confess it, and put it to death, and so 
make the valley of Achor a door of hope ; and not 
lose our conquering position, bat become stronger 
in the Lord than before. 

Or take for example the defeat before Ai ; that 
was a temporary defeat, in a career of conquest. 
The warriors of Ai never defeated the Israelites 
while in the wilderness. How could they ? They 
were not before Ai to be defeated until they had 



242 TN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

come into the land, and were in their victorious 
progress. That defeat was a mere eddy in the 
broad sweep of the current of conquest. And how 

came they to snller even this defeat? Simply 
through their eagerness of victory. Instead of 
stopping to ask counsel of the Lord, they took it 
into their own heads to go against Ai. If they had 
asked the Lord, He would have said, " No, go not up. 
Stir not ono step till the sin of Achan is exposed 
and cleansed/' But going up unadvisedly in their 
own eager counsel, the Lord gave them defeat in- 
stead of victory. And who* among us, who have 
entered upon tho conquering life, have not done this 
same thing, and suffered a like defeat? It is so 
natural for us in attempting the conquest of some 
petty habit, or difficulty, or besetment, to go against 
it in the old way, by resolutions and struggles and 
agonizing cries unto God, instead of taking it right 
to Christ, and laying it over upon Him. So also in 
plans for raising money or of winning souls to Jesus, 
we are so prone to take counsel of our own hearts, 
or of each other, and not of God : and begin to 
work the matter up after the human fashion, instead 
of goins first to the Lord, and then following to the 
letter the counsel He gives. No wonder, therefore, 
that Ave suffer defeat in every such instance, until 
Ave are taught better, and learn to use the key of 
victory — faith — which God has put into our 
hearts. 



IN THE J, AND. 213 

The Gibeonite entanglement was also an incident 
of Israel's victorious progress. The Gibeonites be- 
came greatly alarmed for their safety, and although 

their city was a royal one, very great and wsy 
strong, yet they were so overawed by the Conquests 
of Israel that they concluded to try cunning rather 
than courage, and by their old clouted shoes, and 
old worn-out clothing, and rent bottles and lying 

words, they managed to blind the Israelites, and 
entangle them in an alliance, under supposition that 
they were from another country far away and not 
inhabitants of the land at all. And Israel was led 
into this alliance, how 1 Simply through their old 
process of leaning to their own understanding 5 that 

is, they forgot for the time their key, arid therefore 
they failed of opening the door and letting the light 
in upon the lies of the Gibeonites. Precisely what 
has happened to most of us who are in the conquer- 
ing life. Satan comes and puts on such specious 

appearances ! he dresses up his deceptions in such a 

way that we do not see through them at all ; and so 
sure as we do riot use our key, and fly to Christ for 

counsel, the wicked one has us entangled in some 

Gibeonite compromise with things that ought not to 
be allowed to live a moment. 
17 



244 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 



PROGRESS OF THti CONQUEST. 

Our conquest proceeds step by step, and the 
key must be used at every step, or we are sure to 
slip and fall, and have the step to take over again ; 
or else to entangle ourselves in compromises with 
the Canaanites, arid leave them to spring up and 
become " thorns in our sides and pricks in our 
eyes.'' Extermination to every enemy, to every 
Canaanite, is God's requirement and our safety. 
The old self-life must be put to death as soon as it 
appears in any form whatever, by turning it over to 
Christ. And Christ, the true Israel, the Prince of 
God, must be put in possession in every province 
of the soul and in every interest of our being. 
That is to say, we must let Him rule in us, It Him 
have us, cease from self, — whether it be self-seek- 
ing, self-justifying, self helping, self-delivering, self- 
keeping, self-commending, or self in any other form, 
— and seek Christ, trust Christ, glory in Christ, 
and let Him be all in all. 

There is a wonderful meaning in the severities of 
the law. The Sabbath-breaker must be stoned to 
death. That which breaks our rest in Jesus, our 
Sabbath of the soul, must die ; we must turn it over 
to the true Israel to be judged and stoned to death. 
Achan and all his household must die ; they must 
be judged by Israel, and put to death. The con- 



IN THE LAND. 245 

quest cannot proceed one step until it is done. Why ? 
Because Achan, when he saw a stylish garment 
which the Lord had devoted to destruction, and the 
silver and gold which the Lord had set apart for 
Himself, coveted and took them, and hid them 
in his tent, where his family were privy to his 
crime. The conquest could never go forward if 
things accursed of God were to be coveted and 
kept and covered up by His people, and if things 
consecrated to God, were to be coveted and appro- 
priated to their own selfish purposes. Just as 
Ananias and Sapphira must die, by the judgment 
of God, so must Achan and his family be judged 
and put to death. King Saul must lose his king- 
dom, because that which God devoted to destruc- 
tion, he saved for himself. There was great mean- 
ing in the lowing of the sheep and cattle, as it 
sounded in the ear of Samuel. And the meaning 
of all this to us is, death to every doomed thing ; 
death to vanity, pride, covetousness, ambition, 
temper, impatience, fear, doubt, everything that 
shuts Christ out from the soul, or limits His sway 
in the soul. Each and all, as they come up, one 
by one, must be turned over to Him to be judged 
and put to death. There must be no compromises 
whatever. To put them under is not enough, death 
is their doom. God demands it, and Christ will 
accomplish it if we will let Him. 



246 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

The conquest must begin with the head. Joshua 
must give up the leadership into the hands of the 
true Captain of the Lord's host. The very first 
victory must be gained by the strategy, not of man, 
but of God. The walls of Jericho are not to be 
broken through by battering-rams, or scaled by 
ladders of man's invention ; but they are to fall 
flat at the blast of the bugle of faith, tried and found 
obedient seven days in succession, and seven times 
the seventh day. The head must first be given up 
to the Lord, or the heart will never be taken pos- 
session of by Him. The defeat before Ai, and the 
alliance with the Gibeonites, came from following 
their own heads, and not submitting the matter first 
and entirely to the Lord. Let us be beheaded, and 
let Christ be our head, and He will soon set the 
heart right. 

When we are once fairly and fully and practi- 
cally given up to the Lord, and cease to hinder 
Him by our headiness, He will lead us rapidly on 
from conquest to conquest. He led Israel from 
victory to victory and from city to city so rapidly, 
notwithstanding the delays occasioned by their mis- 
takes, that in an almost incredibly short space of 
time, thirty and one kings were smitten before them, 
and their cities and lands permanently captured and 
occupied. 

This, too, was a true symbol of the grander and 



IN THE LAND. 247 

more glorious victories gained by the disciples of 
our Lord Jesus Christ after they entered into the 
land of promise, into the power of the Spirit on the 
Day of Pentecost ; a true symbol of the still grander 
and more glorious conquests to be made in the days 
yet to come, by the people of God : the conquer- 
ing Church shall put on her beautiful garments, her 
conquering robes, and come forth fair as the moon, 
— fair only in the sun's light, — covered and flooded 
with His effulgence, and terrible to His enemies, in 
the power of the Spirit, as an army with banners. 

One thing in the conquering position of Israel in 
the land, has a special and wonderfully precious 
significance for us : — 

THEIR CAPTAIN WAS INVISIBLE. 

In the wilderness He was visible, in the land He 
was unseen. In the transition from the wilderness 
position to the position in the land, there was a 
transition from sight to faith. The pillar of cloud 
went before them in every movement, while they 
remained in the wilderness. When it rose up they 
struck tent, when it settled down they pitched tent ; 
where it led they followed, where it abode there they 
remained until it again lifted up. But when they 
entered into the land, where was the pillar of cloud ? 
We see no more of it on the hither side of the 
Jordan. Why ? Was He who dwelt in the cloud 



248 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

not with His people any more ? Had He forsaken 
them altogether ? Nay, verily, He was in them. 
He had only come nearer ; He had been with them 
before, but now He was in them. This was that 
which brought them into their conquering position, 
and constituted their conquering power. Without 
this they would have been as weak as they had 
been in the wilderness forty years before. 

In this transition from the visible to the invisible 
presence, and from sight to faith, we have again 
one of the most beautiful of the many wonderful 
symbols of the Old Testament history, wonderfully 
fulfilled in the history of the church fifteen centu- 
ries later, when He who dwelt forty years in the 
cloud, dwelt thirty-three years in the flesh and then 
withdrew His bodily presence, and took up His 
position in spirit in His followers. Thirty-three 
years He was in the flesh. Three years He 
gloriously manifested His power, not only in the won- 
derful works He Himself wrought, but in the works 
His disciples wrought through faith in His name. 
He led them out and in ; gave them power like 
Himself to heal all manner of diseases, and to cast 
out devils. He sent them forth with plenary com- 
mission and commensurate power, insomuch that they 
returned full of wonder and joy, saying, " Even the 
devils are subject unto us through Thy name." A 
grand position indeed! Yet what was it when 



IN THE LAND, 249 

compare! with that of the years from the Day of 
Pentecost onward, when, in His bodily presence, 
their Lord had withdrawn from amongst them, that 
in spiritual presence He might dwell in them ? The 
pillar of flesh had indeed ceased to be seen, but He 
who dwelt in it had not ceased to be with them. 
He was not only with them, but in them — in the 
power of the Spirit. No longer the pillar of flesh, 
but now the pillar of the Spirit. No longer seen 
as a pillar without, but now believed in as a pillar 
within. No longer incarnate with them, but now 
incarnate in them. 

Ah ! this made the difference. This brought 
them up into the conquering position. And tell me, 
beloved, can the significance for us of this transition 
be overestimated? And tell me yet again, are 
not the grand and glorious conquests of the primi- 
tive church to be repeated, yea, and far away 
exceeded, in the days to come, when the church of 
the last days shall come into the same conquering 
position ? When we shall have obeyed the Apos- 
tle's injunction, and u put on the Lord Jesus 
Christ;" and lie shall be again incarnate in His 
people, and we shall have ceased to " limit the 
Holy One," and He shall lead us on in our conquer- 
ing career in His own conquering power, what shall 
we not see ? What will He not do ? Who shall 
be able to stand before Him ? Shall we not then 



250 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

witness the triumphs so glowingly foreshown to the 
prophets of old when the kingdoms of this world 
will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
Christ ? To Israel, the removal from them forever 
of the visible presence meant the permanent en- 
thronement in them of the Invisible One. While 
the visible presence was with them, they were the 
people of God, or people whom all the world could 
not have conquered, because their Captain was the 
invincible Jehovah ; but when He was in them* 
they were by so much the more completely His own, 
a people to conquer the whole world, had He seen 
fit to give it them to do. 

This, beloved, is our own high vantage ground, 
if we have faith to take it. God give it us ! We 
are not straitened in the Lord. It is our high, 
holy, blessed, glorious privilege to have Him who 
dwelt in the bush, in the cloud, in the flesh, and in 
His body, the church, in primitive days, to dwell 
in us by faith ; to have the All-conquering One 
within, and to be in the true, conquering position, 
so gloriously symbolized and exemplified for us in 
the past. 

But now let us mark well by what it was that He 
who dwelt in the bush, and in the cloud, and in the 
flesh, became so gloriously incarnate in His people. 
And what was it? It w^as by faith. By what 
kind of a faith ? Was it by such a kind of faith in 



IN THE LAND. 251 

God's indwelling in them, as that which now 
obtains in the church ? No, no. That is a faith 
that sin is in fact in us stronger than God in us, and 
will keep its hold on us to the end. That is a 
faith that Satan in the world is stronger than God 
in the church, and will not, cannot be overcome. 
That is a faith corresponding exactly to the position 
of Israel in the wilderness, and not to that of 
Israel in the land. That is a faith equal only, 
nay, in many things inferior, to that of the disciples 
in the days when our Lord was incarnate in the 
body that was prepared for Him in the womb of 
the Virgin Mary ; but vastly beneath the faith of 
the same disciples after their Lord had become 
incarnate in that other body prepared for Him — 
His church. 

The prevalent faith is one which cannot grasp 
such promises as were given to Joshua with his 
commission for conquering the land. " Arise," said 
the Lord to him, M arise, go over Jordan, thou and 
all this people, unto the land which I do give them. 
Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread 
upon, that have I given unto you, as I said to 
Moses." Joshua took it, arose, passed over, and 
went from conquering to conquer. The prevalent 
faith does not do that. The Lord said yet more to 
him : " There shall not any man be able to stand 
before thee all the days of thy life : as I was with 



252 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

Moses, so will I be with thee ; I will not leave thee 
Xior forsake thee." And he believed the word of 
the Lord, and the Lord made every syllable of it 
good to him. The prevalent faith does not, cannot 
do that. Nay beloved, the faith that is to win and 
conquer is one that staggers not at the promise, but 
it takes it and acts upon it as true, and finds it so. 
The withdrawal of the pillar of cloud did not 
stagger the faith of Joshua ; had he not the word 
of Him who dwelt in the cloud, saying, u I will not 
leave thee nor forsake thee ? " The swelling Jordan 
before him, and the strongholds and giant warriors 
in the land, did not stagger his faith. Had he not 
the word of the Lord for every place whereon he 
should set the sole of his foot, and for the fall of 
every giant, man, or city before him ? He believed 
God, and God justified him in believing. 

The prevalent faith is not one that grasps the 
promises given by our Lord to His disciples : u Ye 
shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Ye shall 
receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon 
you ; " "I will come unto you. I and my Father 
will make our abode with you." The disciples 
staggered not at these and the like exceeding great 
and precious promises, but accepted them as true, 
and the Lord fulfilled them to the letter, and thus 
made them the world's conquerors that they were. 

beloved, what hinders that we fail of the 



IN THE LAXD. 253 

endowment today? The promise is ours, the 
Apostle Peter declares it : " The promise/' he says. 
M is unto you and to your children, and to all that 
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God 
shall call.'' What hinders, then ? Xothing but 
unbelief. Oh, take the promise, and you shall have 
the endowment. Stagger not at its greatness ; it 
is not too great for God to make good ; He has 
glorified Himself by making it good, and He will 
do it again, if you will let Him, and will not hinder 
Him by unbelief. 

Oh, glorious boon ! Oh, shameful unbelief ! Was 
anything so glorious ever conceived by man ? 
Yet God hath revealed it, promised it, pledged it, 
exemplified it unto us, and will not fail to give it if 
we do not fail to accept it by faith, God incarnate 
in us, imparting His own peace, joy, truth, and 
love! God dwelling in us bv faith, working in us 
His own ways of love, working by us His own 
works of love, and going forth in us in all-conquer- 
ing love ! In comparison with this, all things else, 
ever proffered to man, fade and shrink into nothing- 
ness. 

Who will arise and go over this Jordan ? Who 
will believe, and receive the promised endowment *: 



XXII. 



CALEB AND HIS CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. 



ENCHANTMENT is literally in-singing ; or 
„ j being so filled with joy that — 

" Life, flows on in endless song 
Above earth's lamentations." 



En is only another form of in, and chantment 
another form of singing. 

Fellowship with God is enchanting ; nothing 
else on earth or in heaven so much so. This it 
was that drew forth from the royal Psalmist such 
wonderful strains, first from his harp and voice in 
unwritten words, and then from his pen, for the 
enchantment of others through all generations. 
And this fellowship with God it was, more than 
all else in David, which made him a man after 
God's own heart. 

Who is he that is a friend after your own heart ? 
He who enters most into fellowship with you. 

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother. Who is he ? He it is who enters into 
(254) 



CALEB'S CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. 255 

fellowship with you more truly and deeply than a 
brother. 

What makes the unity of the husband and the 
wife, when it is full, more complete than that be- 
tween parents and children, or brothers and sis- 
ters, or friend and friend, insomuch that they two 
do leave all for each other and become one ? What 
is it ? Fellowship. They enter into each other's 
hearts more perfectly than is possible in any other 
earthly relation. They are after each other's own 
hearts. 

Caleb means " as the heart." Caleb was a man 
after God's own heart. He followed the Lord 
wholly. He entered into the promises of God, 
and they took possession of him. He could have 
shouted the victory over Jericho forty years be- 
, fore it was taken, if the opportunity had been 
given him, as truly and as heartily as he did with 
Joshua and the people on that day when its walls 
fell down at their shout, and they went up every 
one straight before him into the city. At last 
they had to sing, chant, nay, shout their victory 
by faith, while the walls were still standing, and 
the city still garrisoned. He could have done it 
that day forty years before just as heartily. Vir- 
tually he did do it. Nay, he did more, lie in 
his heart shouted the victory of Hebron ; that is, 
the victory over Arba, the City of the Four, away 
in the fastness of the highlands of Canaan, the 



256 IN TEE POWER OF TEE SPIBIT. 

heights of the enemy, the stronghold of the 
giants. 

Look at the picture. The twelve spies go forth 
from the camp of Israel, at Kadesh-Barnea. Forty 
days they search the land. They come in disguise 
to the city Arba, the City of the Four. They view- 
its gigantic walls, they enter in and get sight of 
the three sons of Anak, giant sons of a giant 
father ; they mount the walls and gain a lookout 
over the enchanting' highlands, bathed in Pales- 
tinian sunlight, and dotted with flocks and herds. 
They see its vine-clad slopes, and fruitful vales, 
and grassy meads. How does it affect them ? 

The whole twelve see it in all its beauty, and in 
wonderful contrast with the sand plains and rugged, 
rocky hills and mountains of the wilderness. But 
they see another thing ; they see the giant walls, 
and giant warriors between them and possession. 

Two of them see all this ; but they see yet 
another thing : they see the promise of the Lord, 
and they enter into it. It possesses them. They 
see the Lord with them, the Lord before them ; 
and in virtue of this the giant obstacles dwindle 
into grasshoppers in His presence. 

The difference is, that the ten see themselves 
only, not God, and they see themselves as grass- 
hoppers before the walls and warriors of the land. 
But the two see the Lord, and not themselves, 
and see walls and warriors as nothing before Him. 



CALEB'S CITY OF ENCHANTMENT, 257 

The ten are in fellowship with man, but not 
with God. The two are in fellowship with God, 
and they enter into His plans and purposes as 
made known in His promises. They are of one 
heart with Him. They are in the joy of the Lord 
in the certainty of the inheritance promised to His 
people. They enter into it ; they have it already 
in heart ; it enchants them. 

To the ten Arba is simply the City of the Four, 
the home, and capital, and stronghold, the Gibral- 
tar of the four most renowned warriors of the 
world, — a place impregnable, a place terrible, 
a place whereon to be crushed. 

To the two it is Hebron, the City of Enchant- 
ment, the place of a crowning victory in the con- 
quest of the land, the place where the Lord would 
give them for Himself the highest laurels, to be 
cast at His feet with songs of rejoicing. 

Caleb, the man after God's own heart, so entered 
into fellowship with the Lord in all this, that to 
him already Arba was no more Arba, the strong- 
hold of the four giants of Canaan, but Hebron, 
the City of Enchantment, the abode of songs, the 
dwelling-place of fellowship with God. 

Then comes the test. The twelve return to the 
camp. The ten give their picture, purely human 
throughout. God is not in it at all. They report 
the land as it is, and the obstacles as they are ; 
but fail utterly to set God before the people, for 



258 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

they are not men after God's own heart. The 
two, seeing the fatal defect in the view of the 
ten, and the terrible influence of it in dishearten- 
ing the people, at once interpose, and exclaim, 
" We be well able to overcome. If God be with 
us they shall be bread for us. Only rebel not ye 
against the Lord. Let us go up at once and pos- 
sess the land." 

Tested they stand. But this is not all. The 
people' take up stones to stone them to death, and 
still they stand. They are the Stephens fifteen 
centuries before Stephen's day ; and if they had 
met, as he did, the martyr's fate, they, like him, 
would have had the martyr's crown of fellowship 
with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ at 
the right hand of glory, only heightened in its glory 
through the cloud of falling stones. 

They were spared ; he was translated. They 
were spared to what ? To forty years' wilder- 
ness life, while their hearts were in the land. The 
City of Enchantment never died out of, no, nor 
ever grew dim in the heart of Caleb during' all 
those forty years. He was compelled to live 
amongst those in the wilderness life, to eat with 
them the surface food, at which they murmured, 
but he did not. He was obliged to go in circles 
about in the desert, where no water is, nor any 
soil, nor any fruits, nor any grain, — nothing but 
arid sand and rugged rocks, — though he knew 



CALEB'S CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. 259 

the straight way up into the land of promise and 
the City of Enchantment. He must not leave the 
people ; they were his people : nay, more, they 
were God's own dear children, and dear to him be- 
cause dear to God. As God loved them, and pitied 
them, and nursed them as a mother does her babes, 
even so Caleb, in fellowship with God, suffered 
long, and was loving still, and loving not one whit 
the less ; yea, much the more, because he had no* 
fellowship with them in their murmurings, but had 
full fellowship with the Lord in His suffering love 
for them. 

Forty and five years were gone by. That whole 
generation kept out of the land by unbelief; have 
laid their bleaching bones in the sand. Even 
Moses and Aaron were dead. Only Caleb and 
Joshua remained alive with the children of the 
murmurers ; the children who the fathers said 
would be a prey, have taken the place of their 
fathers. 

But now, 0, how changed is the scene ! Out 
of the wilderness, in the land. Jericho taken 
and destroyed, Ai taken, Gibeah possessed, the 
country far and near conquered. No, not wholly. 
Much land remains to be possessed, and right in 
their pathway stands the giant City, Arba, Caleb's 
Hebron ; and now what is to be done with that ? 
Is it Hebron still to Caleb, or does his courage 
18 



260 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

fail, and the enchanting picture die out of his 
heart now that the final test presents itself? 

Behold this man after God's own heart. He 
does not wait to be asked ; he presents himself of 
his own accord before Joshua, whose name means 
Jesus, and asks that the yet unconquered Arba — 
Hebron he calls it — may be assigned to him, as 
his privilege to conquer and inherit. And what 
is his plea ? God's promise made forty and five 
years ago. And he states two things boldly — 
two things indispensable to his claim of the 
promise : First, the very thing that God had 
stated when he gave the promise, that he wholly 
followed the Lord, wherefore the Lord would be 
with him in his conquest and in his inheritance. 
And the other thing was, that his strength had 
not abated a single jot : the Lord had kept him in 
full strength and vigor for conquest. 

0, noble plea ! 0, glorious reality ! The promise, 
and the keeping power. Forty years he had lived 
among his people amid all the shallowness, empti- 
ness, barrenness, waywardness, wanderings, mur- 
murings of wilderness life, yet had lost nothing ; 
had been kept ; was in fellowship with God as 
deep, as sweet, as full as ever, and prepared for 
the conquest of the enemy's strongest hold, and 
most stalwart heroes. 

0, precious keeping power ! 0, fellowship 
sweet as heaven, abiding as God's love I May 



CALEB'S CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. 261 

more of God's dear children know thee — what 
thou art, with all thy enchanting peace and joy! 

Is it not beautiful, glorious, to see Caleb, the 
man after God's own heart, tested, tried as he had 
been through four and forty years, stand before 
Joshua, the type of Jesus, and ask for Arba, the 
city of the giants, that he might subdue it, and 
change it to Hebron, the City of Enchantment, 
upon the plea of God's own promise and God's 
own faithfulness ? 

Nor is the response less beautiful. It is simply 
" Yes/ 7 with an added blessing. 

Ah ! here is the secret of making every Arba a 
Hebron, and every giant difficulty bread for us. 
Simply to go to Jesus with it, and ask it upon the 
plea of God's promise and God's faithfulness. 

What ! while the difficulty stands in the way ? 

Yes, while it stands ; that is the very time to 
claim the promise. If the difficulty were already 
removed, would you have to ask at all ? Yes, 
while Arba is Arba still in itself, and the giants 
are alive and armed, and the walls all standing — 
yes, then is the time to claim the promise, and 
take the victory by first taking the promise. 

And if you are not wholly the Lord's, be so at 
once ; give yourself up to Him, to follow Him 
wholly and forever, and trust Him to keep you 
as He kept Caleb, in spite of everything oppos- 



262 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

ing you, from within and from without ; and dare 
to believe He will do it. Trust Him ; He will 
keep you, for the promise assures it. " Faithful 
is He that calleth you, who also will do it." Do 
what ? " Preserve you, spirit, soul,- and body, 
blameless." So trusting, so taking the promise, 
w^hat will be the outcome ? 

First the " yes " of the Lord in your heart, and 
then the blessing. Then what? Then, although 
Arba is Arba still to everybody but you, to you 
it will be Hebron, and you will begin to sing. 
Its walls may stand, and its giants may live on 
to others, but to you it is a transformed strong- 
hold. Over its gates is inscribed, not Arba, but 
Hebron, — fellowship, — and its giants are bread 
for you. 

And is this a thing of fancy ? No, but of re- 
ality ; just the substance of things hoped for, that 
is all. 

And the things hoped for, will they prove sub- 
stance ? Follow the Lord wholly, trust in His 
promise, stand in it unstaggered, and the giants 
will be giants no more forever, but only bread for 
you ; and the city will be Arba no more, but He- 
bron forever, and its habitations will be the well- 
springs of song, and its streets, rivers, and homes 
of praise forever. Enchanting fellowship with God 
shall run down every street in living streams, and 
well up in every habitation ; yes, and it shall man 



CALEB'S CITY OF ENCHANTMENT. 263 

all the walls, and watch in every gateway, with 
a joyous welcome for all comers, for in that day 
shall this song be sung: — 

"We have a strong city, 
Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks : 
Open ye the gates that the righteous may enter in : 
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
Whose mind is stayed on Thee, 
Because he trusteth in Thee. 
Trust ye in the Lord forever, 
For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength" 




XXIII. 



KIRJATH-SEPHER, THE CITY OF THE BOOK. 



ITS CAPTOR, HIS BRIDE, AND THEIR BLESSING. 

KHEN Caleb had taken Hebron, there re- 
^^ mained yet of his inheritance to be taken 

Kirjath-Sepher, the City of the Book. 
Caleb was neither wearied of, or in his warfare. 
He was, as his name indicates, a man after God's 
own heart, and had for his inheritance Hebron, 
the City of Enchanting Fellowship. His vigor 
was not a jot abated by toils or years. The 
Lord's keeping is perfect, and He had kept Caleb 

" Ever fresh, and ever young." 

Yet instead of going forward himself to take 
Kirjath-Sepher, he gave out that whosoever would 
take it, should have Achsah, his daughter, as his 
wife. Why so ? 

Ah ! the reason was this : that enchanting fel- 
lowship with God inspires him who enjoys it with 
deep desire that others may share with him the 
(264) 



KIRJATH-SEPHER, CITY OF THE BOOK. 265 

blessedness of his inheritance ; and in this, as in 
all things else, Caleb wholly followed the Lord. 

Kirjath-Sepher, the City of the Book, was a 
beautiful city, in a sunny land, and Caleb desired 
for his daughter, above all things, that she might 
be in it as a bride with her bridegroom. There- 
fore he made the proclamation. 

Achsah, means Adorned. She was, no doubt, 
as lovely as her name indicates, wonderfully suit- 
ed, as a bride adorned for her husband, to grace 
and to enjoy with him the City of the Book in the 
sunny south land. 

The offer was instantly accepted by Othniel. 
Caleb probably foresaw this. The name Othniel, 
signifies God's Hour ; that is, man's golden mo- 
ment, — now. And Caleb knew him as a minute- 
man, ready to strike at the opportune moment. 
True to his name, Othniel took the city, and re- 
ceived his bride. 

No sooner was Achsah settled with her husband 
in their inheritance, than she discovered a grand 
addition, near at hand, and needful to fill up the 
measure of their felicity — a field with springs of 
water ; and she moved her husbaud to go with 
her, and ask it of her father. Of one mind with 
her, Othniel assented, and together they rode 
from Kirjath-Sepher up towards Hebron. Caleb, 
seeing them approach, comes forth and meets 
them. Dismounting, they salute him, and he 



266 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

asks of his daugiiter, graciously, " What wouldest 
thou?" 

Achsah answers, " A blessing;' 7 then adds, 
11 Thou hast given us a south land, give us also 
springs of water. 77 

Achsah ! Achsah ! Having already re- 
ceived so much of thy generous father unasked, 
is it not too much for thee to ask of him anything 
more ? 

No, no. Not so did her father think for a mo- 
ment. But, 0, what must have been the joyful 
surprise of Othniel and Achsah at the response, 
" Springs of water ? Yes. The nearer field, with 
its living waters ? Yes, certainly, gladly, and 
the farther field with its water springs too." 
Double over more than they asked. 

THE CITY OF THE BOOK 

Is a wonderful city. It has palaces in abundance 
for princes ; and it has also beautiful houses and 
cottages for every grade of the people, and one 
temple for all. It has treasures untold, and of ev- 
ery variety ; and it has gardens more beautiful 
than were the renowned ones of Babylon in the 
days of its magnificence, with every manner of 
fruit in its season, and food in abundance for all 
its inhabitants, and all gladdened by the river of 
God. There is no lack for anybody. Then it is, 
0, so cheery to those who are really in it — a 
sunny land, indeed ! 



KIRJATH-SEPHER, CITY OF TEE BOOK. 267 

A MINUTE-MAN, 

And he only, can be the captor of the City of the 
Book. Those who parley about taking it, fail of 
it entirely. They may dig away, and seek to un- 
dermine its walls, and to make a breach in them, 
and so to get possession ; but in this they get 
task-work in abundance, and weariness often, and 
hunger and disappointment, with failure in the 
end. Only he who takes it by a single coup de 
main of faith can take it at all. 

Do 3 7 ou see what this means ? 

Othniel, as you may understand at a glance, 
must first take the city on trust. He must first 
jump to the conclusion that inside the walls there 
is a city, with its palaces, treasures, gardens, and 
things worth taking. The walls outside he does 
see, but the inside of every palace, and treasure- 
house, and garden, is entirely beyond his vision 
— shut in and shut out. All he can do is to be- 
lieve and go forward. 

Once taken, he could then freely explore, and 
freely appropriate, and freely distribute ; none to 
molest or to hinder ; but, until taken as a whole ho 
can see nothing of its parts, and do nothing with 
them. 

There are those who do not see this at all in 
reference to the Book. The}' parley about it, and 
stay outside. They think it must be taken piece- 



268 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

meal, and that it must be seen through first in 
each part, and then accepted. But, 0, how ab- 
surd such a conclusion would have been for Oth- 
niel ! 

There were other youthful warriors under Ca- 
leb, no doubt, to whom the city was offered with 
the bride, but they did not take it. He did. 
Why ? Because they parleyed and he struck. 
So they lost, and he won both the city and the 
bride. Did they wait to inquire what was in it 
worth taking* ? He did not, but took it on trust. 
Did they parley about whether they were strong 
enough to cope with the difficulties it presented ? 
He did not, but threw himself instantly upon the 
promise, " Not a man shall be able to stand be- 
fore you ; every place whereon thou settest thy 
foot shall be thine. " 

There is just one way to take the City of the 
Book, — that is, blind. Close its two lids, and clasp 
it between your two hands, and say, " I take this 
as God's own, and every word of it I believe to 
be true, whether I understand it or not." 

This done, it is yours. God's gift to you is 
accepted by you. And it is yours. 

Then, as to possession in detail, every part as 
you come to it must be accepted as yours, before 
you enter into it at all. You cannot enter it in 
any other way. 

Can you imagine Othniel and Achsah entering 



KIRJATH-SEPHER, CITY OF TEE BOOK. 269 

the city to explore it, and going from palace to 
palace, treasure to treasure, garden to garden, 
wondering whether each belonged to thern or 
not, thinking of this, and that, and the other, that 
they could not be theirs, because they had been 
built or adorned for others ? 

Why, they had taken it altogether, and every 
part was their own. 

But if they had so gone through it, not one 
thing of all, about which the question of right was 
raised, could they have taken in possession and 
enjoyed as their own. t would have been Doubt- 
ing Castle, and not the City of the Book, to them. 

The Bride, for us, means 

THE BRIDAL POSITION. 

Christ is our Bridegroom. In the household of 
our Father there is neither male or female ; all 
alike are entitled to the bridal position, if they 
will take it ; such is our Father's proclamation. 
Yet the bridal position can only be taken by those 
who take the Book, first as whole, and then take 
this proclamation in the Book in particular. The 
city must first be taken before the Bride can be 
claimed, according to the proclamation. Then, 
but not till then, can the Bridegroom put the 
Bride in possession, and defend her in it forever. 

How does the Bride enter upon her inheritance ? 
Independently of the Bridegroom ? How did 



270 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIBIT. 

Achsab come into possession of tlie City of the 
Book? Did she take it herself for herself ? No 
doubt she was a deeply interested looker-on when 
Othniel went forth for the capture. Yet all she 
could do was to go with him in heart, and let him 
fight the battle for her. 

All we can do is to put our case into the hands 
of our Champion Bridegroom, and let Him fight 
our battles for us. He only is able to cope with 
our giant foes and to give us our City, and put us 
in possession of its palaces and treasures. We 
may safely trust Him to do it. His is the right 
.to do it. He is. the rightful owner of all and of 
us too, won by His own hand, in the dread con- 
flict wherein His own life was put. 

Then, too, He won us for this very purpose, to 
give us our inheritance with Him in all the treas- 
ures and wonders of the City of the Book ; and 
He won us with His life, because He loved us 
better than life, and gave Himself for us. His, 
too, are all resources, and His is the Guide. And 
you know that the Guide, — who Himself was the 
Guide of holy men of old by whom the city was 
built, every stone of it, bit by bit, and all its 
treasures laid up in it one by one, — and He alone, 
can guide us into the actual comprehension and 
enjoyment of it, step after step. 

He will do it, too, so wonderfully,, if we only 
trust Him with the whole heart, and follow Him 
fully. 



KIBJATH-SEPHEB, CITY OF THE BOOK. 271 

THE ADDED BLESSING. 

How is it received, and what is it worth ? It is 
not a thing won by conquest out of the hand of 
the enemy, but received as a bounty from our 
Father. From our Father, I say. Bride and 
Bridegroom go together to receive it ; to ask it, 
that they may receive it. The Bride does the 
asking, in union with and in presence of the Bride- 
groom, and in His name, for His name is now 
hers. They are one. Together in this way they 
ask it, and ask it as a bounty, not as a claim, 
and ask it of their own Father, whose bounteous- 
ness they fully confide in. 

Do you understand this ? 

Some do not, Some take the servant's place, 
and go as a servant may go in his master's name ; 
but a servant will never gain the reception of a 
son or a daughter. A prodigal son, returning to 
ask the lowest place as a servant, will be received 
as a son ; but a servant will only be received as 
a servant. Much less will a servant receive the 
bounty which can be given only as an additional 
dower of the Bride. 

Some go in the name of the Bride, and go as 
the Bride, but fail to move the Bridegroom to go 
with them. They go by themselves, in their own 
head, and they fail. 

So did not Achsah. She first made sure that 



272 IN TEE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

the thing to be asked was not only right in it- 
self, and very desirable to have, but that Othniel 
was one with her in the matter. We may well 
believe that she would not have stirred one step 
without him. This is just what the words of our 
Lord convey to us when He says, "If ye abide 
in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask 
what ye will and it shall be done unto you." 

What it is to ask in faith has been put in an- 
other way very encouraging to those who do not 
so well understand the exceeding bounteousness 
of our Father, and the wonderful advantage of the 
bridal position. Take any promise, they say, as 
an errand-boy would take a check on a bank, 
bearing the signature of one who has money there 
on deposit, and go with it to God, as the errand- 
boy would go w r ith the check to the counter of 
the bank, and take what it demands, and take it 
as what you are entitled to, upon the strength of 
the promise in the name of the promisor. 

This is indeed very encouraging. But tell me, 
is not the other infinitely more so ? 

A bride and bridegroom going to their father, 
whose bounty has been gloriously shown, and 
wondrously pledged, but never exhausted, and 
going to ask of him what will still further illus- 
trate his liberality and his love, while it greatly 
enriches them ! Ah, this is another thing alto- 
gether from an errand-boy with his check at the 



KIRJATH-SEPHER, CITY OF^ THE BOOK. 273 

counter of a bank, whose teller tells out the 
amount to a farthing, and no more. Achsah comes 
herself with her husband. She is no errand-boy 
with a check. They come not at all with a de- 
mand, but with a request, for a blessing. A 
Messing means a bounty, not a due. They ex- 
pect it, and are prepared to receive it, not as a 
thing due to them, but as a gift out of the love 
their father has already shown to them. 

And they do receive. In what measure ? The 
measure of demand ? No, but in the measure of 
bounty, twice over more than all they ask or 
think. 

This is the measure of the blessing. Its pre- 
ciousness they clearly understood, and so may we. 

Any field in the promised land depends largely 
for its value upon its water supply. Pasturage 
may come from the rains alone, but fruitage must 
come mainly from irrigation. Springs, therefore, 
although not an absolute necessity, are a very 
great boon. However fair to the sun, or rich the 
soil of a field, it will not yield the olive and the 
vine, or the wheat and the barley, without water. 

One, according to the showing of this wonder- 
ful bit of history, may come to be a servant, a 
son, an heir, yea, a bride of the Lamb, and be 
brought into the City of the Book, with its pal- 
aces and treasures, and have with it a sunny 
south land, and yet, after all, not come into pos- 



274 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

session of the springs of water, though they be 
ever so desirable and ever so near at hand. 

The well of water springing up into everlasting 
life was very near to the woman at the well, but 
it was only when she asked and received that her 
life became so wonderfully fruitful. 

The Fountain of living waters was not afar off 
from any one of the assembled multitude, to 
whom our Saviour's voice came in the Temple on 
that last and great day of the feast, when He 
stood and proclaimed that rivers of water should 
flow forth from those who should put their trust 
in Him. 

The amazing fulness of this blessing was shown 
when this proclamation began to have its fulfil- 
ment in that same city of Jerusalem, in the upper 
chamber and in the Temple where the proclama- 
tion was made. And, 0, what glorious fruitage 
followed the blessing ! 

Yes, yes, beloved, here is the law of the 
blessing of blessings, the added blessing to the 
bride : — 

Union between Bride and Bridegroom in asking, 
And bounty from the Father in giving. 



XXIV. 

the throne: fountain within you. 

GSjjSp^HE heart is a throne, and the throne is a 
$vraS fountain. The throne is never empty, 
and the fountain never ceases to flow. 
But the streams from the fountain may be either 
rivers of the water of life or of death, according 
to which it is, whether Christ or the flesh, in the 
throne. 

The Scriptures present for our acceptance by 
faith the privilege of being made one with Christ 
in practical union, by mutual indwelling. 

WE IN CHRIST, AND HE IN US. 

The side of the union for which we need most 
the strengthening might of God by His Spirit, is 
that of the indwelling of Christ in us by faith. 

For us poor bankrupts in everything pertaining 
to life and godliness, it is easier to accept our 
solvency in heaven in Christ, than on earth 
through Christ in us. 

We can, with comparative ease, believe that in 
19 (275) 



276 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

Christ above we are complete, and that in Him 
there is for us stored up all fulness, to be made 
ours, a little now, more by and by, and finally in 
all completeness ; but, 0, how hard to accept the 
reality of the presence of our blessed Saviour 
with us and within us, in all His fulness for us, 
for the walk and the work, and the worship and 
the warfare of Mfe irom this time henceforth for- 
ever ! 

Was it not the knowledge of our weakness on 
this side that led the Apostle to pray so earnestly 
to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, to strengthen us with might by His 
Spirit in the inner man, that Christ might dwell 
in us by faith ? 

Yet the promises of God are as full, and clear, 
and explicit, to say the least of it, for the in- 
dwelling of Christ in us as for our indwelling 
in Him. 

Many distinct veins, in type, and teaching, 
and testimony, showing forth this glorious pro- 
vision of God for us, run through and through 
His Word from the beginning* of Genesis to the 
end of Revelation. First, that of 

CHRIST IN US OUR LIFE. 

To begin where God begins, with the type, how 
beautiful the picture of this in the garden of God 
in the opening of Genesis ! 



THE THRONE: FOUNTAIN WITHIN YOU. 277 

The real garden was a garden within the gar- 
den, in the souls of Adam and Eve. That was, 
like its external type, planted by the Lord, and 
watered by a river out of His throne in their 
hearts, parted into four heads, like the four living 
ones above upon the throne, the four evangels, 
and it brought forth all manner of fruit and 
flowers good for food and beautiful to the eye, 
fruit of the Spirit, and incense to God, sweeter 
to Him than that of the flowers from their ten 
thousand censers to them. 

Nor did the river of life become the river of 
death, or the garden in their souls become a des- 
olation, until they yielded to Satan and gave the 
throne in their hearts up to the flesh instead of 
God. 

Twin to the picture of the garden of God in 
the opening of Genesis, is that of the city of God 
in the close of Revelation. 

The garden has become a city, a great city, a 
multitude which no man can number — the Holy 
City, the New Jerusalem, City of Peace. • It is 
built as the garden was planted, by the Lord 
Himself. Its walls are living walls, each stone a 
living stone most precious. Its foundations are 
apostles and prophets, and its gates of pearl are 
the tribes of the family of our God. And in the 
midst of it is the throne of God and the Lamb, 
out of which flows the river of the water of life, 



278 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

clear as crystal, with its islands and banks cov- 
ered with the tree of life hearing fruits as various 
as the peculiarities of twelve tribes and twelve 
apostles, and yielding its fruit as continually as 
the twelve months of the year roll on, and its 
leaves for the healing of the nations. This is the 
picture of the City of God above, do you say ? 
and of that city as a whole ? Yes, truly ; but 
it is the City of God come down from heaven 
amongst men, the tabernacle of God with us, yea, 
within us. For as the Church as a whole is just 
what its members are in their individual character 
and life, so the City of God is in all its beauty 
and glory as the Bride of the Lamb, made up of 
the living stones, the living ones in whom He 
who is our life dwells in His beauty. 

See how this is exemplified in connection with 
this very picture ! Who and what is he to whom 
it is shown by the angel ? 

John the beloved, all ripe for the kingdom 
above. Why ? Because the kingdom is ripe 
within him. Throne, river, freshness, fruitage, in 
his own variety, and all Christ in him the hope 
of glory. His white, flowing hair, and the mellow 
light of his meek and loving countenance already 
begin to take on the very sweetness of the glory 
into which he is merging through the indwelling 
of the glorified One in him by faith. 

And love, love, love ; light, light, light ; life, 



THE THRONE: FOUNTAIN WITHIN YOU. 279 

life, life, in God and the Lamb, are the fruit of his 
lips continually. 

But we are not left to symbol and example 
alone. The words of Christ and His apostles tell 
us of the indwelling in us by faith, of Christ our 
Life, as plainly as words can speak. 

And that not only in such distinct confessions 
as that of St. Paul, in which he says, "lam cru- 
cified, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me ; ;? and as that exultant assurance of 
his, "When Christ who is our life shall appear, 
then shall we appear with Him in glory ; " — but 
our Lord Himself has taken the greatest pains to 
place it before us in the words of His own lips in 
the most unequivocal forms. 

In that last precious interview with His dis- 
ciples, before going forth to the agonies of Geth- 
semane, and the judgment hall, and the cross, He 
first showed them by symbol and word that their 
feet must be washed by Him in the daily walk, or 
they could have no part or lot in it with Him. 

This first, then, as to the indwelling. He first 
assured them that He would send upon them the 
the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, who 
should dwell in them forever. 

Then He went further, and promised to come 
to them Himself. 

Then still further, telling them that He and His 
Father would come and make their abode with them. 



280 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

And the vital union from this abiding He com- 
pared with that of the Vine and the branches. 

And then enjoined them to abide in Him and 
He in them. 

And finally, with eyes uplifted to His Father, 
He asked in our behalf that we might be one with 
Him, as He is one with the Father. He in us, 
and we in Him, as He is in the Father, and the 
Father in Him. 

And all this especially for life here upon earth, 
that the world might know that the Father had 
sent Him, and might believe in His so loving the 
world even as He loves His own only-begotten 
Son. 

What more could he have said ? 

AS THE SOURCE OF CHRISTIAN DAILY LIVING. 

Is there not a charm in these words — abide, 
abode, dwell, dwelling, indwelling, and the like, 
which we at best only faintly appreciate ? 

They do express permanence, and that is a 
great deal. Surely it is a wonderful boon to us, 
when we can so come into Christ and He into us, 
that the intervals of absence cease, and all our 
moments are filled up by the cheer and sunshine 
of the faith of this real and perpetual presence of 
Christ ; but there is, 0, so much more in these 
words than this. They speak of an e very-day 
home-making, with its community of love and 



THE THRONE: FOUNTAIN WITHIN YOU. 281 

interest, and interchanged between our precious 
Bridegroom and ourselves. We are to make a 
home in Him and lie in us continually. 

He is indeed to come in and sup with us, and 
we with Him, when we open the door to Him. 
But there He is to tarry for the night. Nay, He 
is to go no more out forever, but make a home in 
us and with us always. Not as a guest, not as 
our servant, — no ; but as our Lord, our King, 
our Husband, Brother, Father, everything that is 
loving and lovely in one. And, 0, what a daily 
life is ours in this home-making between our Lord 
and ourselves ! As a Son over His own house 
whose house are we, He takes possession of us 
and we of Him. And then, how sweet the out- 
flow of the rivers of the water of life ! In the 
domestic life, how gentle, loving, and kind ! In 
the business life, how true, and peaceful, and up- 
right I In the social life, how pure, and harmo- 
nious, and happy ! And in the public life, how 
honest, unselfish, and loyal ! How blessed, at all 
times and everywhere, to have one at hand to 
counsel, and direct, and sustain you, and care for 
you, and bear you above your cares and fears, 
and keep you in His own perfect peace ! 

Beloved, this is not fancy but fact, and we have 
it in the Word of God. 0, that every dear child 
of God had it in their own experience through 
faith in Christ on the strength of His word 1 



282 IN THE POWER OF TEE SPIRIT. 

AS THE SOURCE OF REAL WORSHIP. 

If we fail of the charm of such words as are 
used to convey to us the reality provided for us 
in Christ of home-making in the every-day life, 
do we not fail yet more, if it be possible, of the 
beautiful and blessed significance of the symbol 
of worship — temple of God ? 

Temple of God. What does that mean ? The 
home of the soul in God, and of God in the soul, 
in endless worship. 

Times of worship. Yes, there are indeed times 
of worship, when prayer and praise with joyous 
thanksgiving flow forth in word and action ; but 
through the faith of an indwelling God and Saviour 
there is a worship even in silence as perpetual 
and easy as breathing, — rejoicing evermore, pray- 
ing without ceasing, and in everything the giving 
of thanks. Rivers of worship flow forth sponta- 
neously from the throne-fountain in us, when God 
and the Lamb are in the throne. 

Nor is there one particle of real worship from 
any other source. 

Take the grandest assembly of worshippers ever 
convened upon earth, and lead them through the 
most perfect round of acts of worship ever en- 
gaged in by men or angels, and of true worship, 
what have you in it ? 

Just so much, and no more, as you have in the 



TEE THRONE: FOUNTAIN WITHIN YOU. 283 

hearts of the worshippers spontaneously flowing" 
forth from God enthroned in them. All else is 
husk and shell, not spirit and truth. 

0, how beautifully this is symbolized in the 
temple ! Ye are the temple of God. In the Holy 
of Holies, without a window, without a lamp, 
without the provision for so much as a single ray 
of created light, dwelt the Lord Himself in the 
mercy-seat upon tho Ark of the Covenant, sprin- 
kled with blood, and anointed with oil, God and 
the Lamb ever the light of it. It needed no other 
light ; indeed, it could have no other light than 
the light of the Lord Himself. So with us in our 
inner man. If the Lord dwell not there, all is 
dark. If the Lord come not in, all must remain 
dark forever. 

The inner surface of the temple, too, all over- 
laid with pure gold, the symbol of Christ. How 
beautifully does this show us that Christ must be 
put on, within as well as without, as all in all, for 
sanctification, even as in the crimson skins over 
the tabernacle He was shown as our covering ! 

Then, too, the blood-sprinkling, the anointing, 
the shew-bread, and the incense and the altar of 
sacrifice, and the laver for feet- washing, and the 
ministry of Aaron and his sons. How they all 
speak of Christ the High-Priest, and His blood, 
and the Comforter given by Him as an indwelling 
Saviour and God ! 



284 IN TEE POWER OF THE SPIRIT 

AS THE SOURCE OF GOVERNMENT. 

Do you not believe that the reason of our lame- 
ness in the government within comes all from the 
mistake of putting it upon the wrong shoulders ? 

I do not so much ask this concerning the gov- 
ernment of our actions and words, as of our 
thoughts and affections. It is quite possible to 
keep such a control over our tongue and our 
hands that they shall not smite anybody, but can 
we bring every thought of our heart into captivity 
to Christ ? Can we so govern our affections that 
rivers of love shall proceed out of them ? 

When we try to do this, do we succeed ? 

Are our minds and hearts made for self-govern- 
ment ? 

Are they not made to be governed by the Lord? 

In the shadows of the old dispensation there 
was the government of the flesh, with its awful 
bondage in Egypt, and of the law, with its strict- 
ness and severity of death penalty in the wilder- 
ness. And in the land there was the government 
of judges, self-government very fitful and eccen- 
tric, the sum of which we have in the last verse 
of the Book of Judges. In those days there was 
no king in Israel : every man did that which was 
right in his own eyes. And then, when David 
was made king in Hebron, they had good govern- 
ment over Judah and Benjamin. But it was only 



THE THRONE: FOUNTAIN WITHIN YOU. 285 

when the ten tribes joined with the two, and made 
David king over all Israel, that good government 
was extended over the whole land, and the strong- 
hold Zebus in Jerusalem was taken and converted 
into Zion, and the entire country given to Israel 
for an inheritance was taken actually into posses- 
sion. 

When Christ is accepted and enthroned in the 
heart as an indwelling King, and the government 
is laid over upon His shoulders, then, indeed, it 
is in the hands of one who can expel all His ene- 
mies, and only by the power of a new affection, 
even the affection for the new King, chiefest 
among ten thousands. 

Yes ; and the will, that stiff-necked thing, — 
0, how He can make it willing in the beauties of 
holiness, and keep it so ! And once the govern- 
ment shifted over from ourselves upon Him, there 
is no end to the increase of it until its sway 
extends to the minutest details of life, nor any 
cessation in the peace of it, upon the throne of 
David, and upon His kingdom to order it, and to 
establish it from henceforth forever. 

Let us hasten, then, if we have not already 
done it, to lay the Key of David over upon the 
Son given unto us. So shall he open before us — 
and no man can shut — the door of His treasure- 
house of wisdom and truth and grace, peace and 
power ; and He shall shut, and no man shall open, 



286 IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

the door, for His enemies and ours to come in, or 
to have dominion over us. The symbol of the 
City of God, which, with that of the Garden of 
God, is the clasp of the whole Book of the Law 
and the Testimony, has its completeness in indi- 
vidual realization when, and only when, Christ is 
brought out of Hebron, the city of enchanting 
fellowship with God, and crowned King in Zion 
over all Israel, over all our powers, faculties, in- 
terests, and possessions, and the Key of all is laid 
upon His shoulders. 

Then, and not till then, will the river of the 
water of life flow forth from the throne-fountain 
clear as crystal, parted into four heads, — Life, 
Living, Worship, and Government. 




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